down 0.8% on the bourse

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell 0.8%.

Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell 0.8% to 9,854 yuan a tonne. The contract hit a five-month high of 10,046.50 yuan a tonne on Thursday.

The most-active copper futures contract on the Comex exchange in the US fell 0.1% to $5.1085 a pound, hitting a 10-month high on Thursday.

Late last month, US President Donald Trump ordered the US Commerce Department to investigate the possibility of imposing copper tariffs on national security grounds, a move that sent copper futures in New York soaring relative to other global benchmarks.

The spread between New York’s Comex and the London Metal Exchange has widened to above $1,200 a tonne, approaching a record high reached in mid-February. That’s a 12% premium and a big incentive for traders and producers to keep shipping copper to the US ahead of the tariffs.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. predict the U.S. will impose a 25% import tariff on copper by the end of the year. Even with the tariffs, U.S. copper buyers have little choice but to continue buying imported metal because the U.S. consumes twice as much as it produces.

US buyers are now seeking more supplies from countries such as Chile and Peru amid surging copper inventories. Some metal from Mexican and Canadian mines is likely to be diverted to Europe as a result of US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on major US trading partners. Chile’s state-run producer Codelco, which is the top shipper to the US, is scrambling to meet additional demand from US customers after meeting with them last month.

That marks a shift for China, which bought about 4 million tonnes of the metal last year and accounts for about 40% of the world’s refined copper. The United States is becoming the preferred sales destination for the world’s top producers and traders, putting the Asian nation at a disadvantage, according to the International Copper Study Group.

That creates a lucrative environment for producers and traders, allowing them to exploit price differentials between the US and other markets.

“There is likely to be a broader reshaping of the supply chain,” Citigroup analyst Tom Mulqueen said in an interview.

Monthly shipments to Chinese ports in April and May could fall by as much as a third compared with the same period last year, according to a major Asian trader. Requests to ship copper out of London Metal Exchange warehouses in Asia have surged to their highest level since August 2017.

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/gia-kim-loai-dong-ngay-24-3-giam-0-8-tren-san-giao-dich.html