Copper price near 8-month low on tightening lockdowns in China

Copper for delivery in July fell 2.6% from Friday’s settlement price, touching $4.15 per pound ($9,139 per tonne) midday Monday on the Comex market in New York, the lowest since September 1.

The most-active June copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was down 0.6% at 71,740 yuan ($10,715.62), after dropping to its lowest since March 16.

Investors are awaiting China’s April trade data due later in the session to gauge the scope of disruptions from covid-19 lockdowns.

Shanghai authorities were tightening the city-wide covid lockdown they imposed more than a month ago, prolonging into late May an ordeal that China’s capital Beijing was desperate to avoid by turning mass testing into an almost daily routine.

Nonetheless, strategists at Commerzbank expect copper to recoup its losses by year-end.

“After the end of the current correction – at the beginning of May the copper price had slipped to its lowest level since mid-December – we expect higher copper prices again,” said the bank.

“At the end of the year, we see copper at $9,500 per tonne.”