What’s going on here?
Copper inventories on the Shanghai Futures Exchange are shrinking fast, signaling a likely price jump, while US stocks have reached levels unseen since 2018 due to shifting trade dynamics.
What does this mean?
Copper stocks in Shanghai took a record dive of 32% last week, dropping to 116,753 tons, driven by early releases ahead of Chinese public holidays. Meanwhile, the Yangshan copper premium, a gauge for China’s copper imports demand, hit $93 a ton – up over 40% since January. Conversely, US stocks on COMEX climbed 45% to 137,759 metric tons, the highest since December 2018, as US-China trade tensions and tariff scares rerouted copper to American shores. Shanghai’s copper prices typically top COMEX due to supply-demand dynamics, but tariff-induced buying has flipped the script, sending US prices up since mid-March. With Shanghai inventories dwindling, traders anticipate a price rise there, potentially…
