Copper plunged more than 5 per cent to trade below $9,000 a ton, in the biggest drop since July 2022, as worries over the impact of a worsening trade war sparked a heavy selloff in industrial metals and mining equities.
The bellwether metal slumped as much as 5.1 per cent to $8,890.50 a ton in London, extending a heavy selloff seen on Thursday after sweeping tariffs from US President Donald Trump triggered a rout in global financial markets.
Losses accelerated across the industrial metals markets on Friday after China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported that Beijing will retaliate with a 34 per cent tariff on all imports from the US starting April 10. Major mining companies also plunged, with Glencore Plc falling almost 10 per cent — hitting the lowest since 2021 — while Antofagasta Plc lost nearly 9 per cent.
It’s a whipsawing reversal for copper traders, who have up to now been mainly focused on the bullish supply-side impacts of a worldwide push to ship copper to the US before targeted levies on the metal are imposed. But with Trump’s trade barriers on all incoming goods now coming into force, the attention is shifting quickly to the consequences for demand in the US and beyond.
“While we remain structurally bullish copper in the long run, weaker global GDP and copper demand growth risk delaying the deficit we expect to see in the market this year,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said in a report.
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Copper is on track for a drop of more than 8 per cent this week, which would be its biggest slide since the early stages of the pandemic. It traded 4.8% lower at $8,916.50 a ton on the London Metal Exchange as of 12:23 p.m. local time.
The Trump administration’s latest slew of levies will depress prices, Max Layton, global head of commodities research at $Citigroup Inc(C-N)$., said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. Copper will likely fall by another 8 per cent to 10 per cent in the coming weeks, he added.
Aluminum fell for a 12th straight day, while zinc, lead and nickel also suffered heavy losses this week. Tin also slumped on Friday, wiping out a weekly gain driven by concerns about supply disruptions. Chinese markets were closed for a public holiday on Friday.
--With assistance from Atul Prakash.
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