Over the last few weeks cooper prices have been on a roller coaster, with prices dipping 10 cents and then quickly rebounding days later. A lot of this impact on copper prices can be due to China’s impact on the overall metal demand.Industrial metals and mining shares jumped recently as China, one of the biggest consumers of commodities, demand recovered.
In fact, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. one of the largest publicly traded copper miners reached its highest closing price in five months. March seemed to be a good month for China’s metal demand. Their overseas shipments grew 11.5 % in dollar terms during March compared to earlier this year, and compared to a 25% slump in February. And Copper imports rose for the first time in 2016 gaining 36 percent on the month.
Chinese trade data has showed stronger than expected exports and imports which suggests a stabilization in the Chinese economy. China makes up 50% of global demand in copper and this stabilization gave boost to copper. Copper for delivery in 3 month, climbed 1.3 % to settle at $4,830 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. Other base metals also saw a gain including aluminum, zinc, nickel, lead and tin.

By
Jill McVey