down due to weak demand from China

Three-month copper futures on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.9%.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose 0.9% to $9,875 a tonne. It has fallen 0.7% so far this year. September futures on the Comex rose 1.9% to $4.59 a pound.

The U.S. currency weakened, making the dollar-denominated metal more attractive to buyers using other currencies, after U.S. producer prices rose moderately in June, bolstering the case for a September interest rate cut.

Copper inventories in LME-registered warehouses remain near their highest in more than 2-1/2 years after nearly doubling since mid-May due to capital flows into Asian warehouses.

However, according to daily LME data, warrant stocks have fallen to 190,500 tonnes after 5,900 tonnes were marked for delivery, signaling that the large inflows may be coming to an end.

Meanwhile, a slew of data from China added to concerns about weak domestic demand amid high copper prices. The metal, used in electricity and construction, has fallen 11% since hitting a record high of $11,104.50 on May 20, but is still up 15% since the start of 2024.

In the copper industry, capital costs are too high to offset the returns that mining investors generate and have been the driving force behind the bull market over the past decade - a view shared by analysts at Stifel Financial.

“Generally for larger projects, that’s what I’m seeing in the copper space right now and it’s kind of typified,” said Cole McGill, vice president of US investment banking.

“If you look at the growth of supply in the industry from 2009 to 2016, copper supply grew at a compound annual growth rate of about 3.5 to 4 percent, which is about half of GDP, which is pretty good considering the Chinese bull thesis was the commodity bubble of the early 2000s,” McGill said.

In fact, millions more tonnes of rock would need to be moved and processed to get the same amount of copper, and that’s the kind of relationship that the big miners are seeing today, according to McGill. He points to how the world’s largest copper miners, such as BHP, Anglo American and Antofagasta, are currently building on only their top-grade or top-three assets.

McGill also noted that miners are currently struggling with supply disruptions around the world, particularly in Latin America, despite higher prices.

Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/gia-kim-loai-dong-ngay-15-7-giam-do-nhu-cau-yeu-tu-trung-quoc.html