LONDON: Copper prices fell for the second session on Friday as softer demand from price-sensitive consumers such as China pushed the growth-dependent metal down from its recent highs, sparked by the 90-day U.S.-China trade truce.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was down 0.8% at $9,495 a metric ton by 0959 GMT.
The metal, used in power and construction, touched $9,664 on Wednesday, for its highest since April 2, and is up 4% so far this month.
“Copper prices above $9,500 seem to again be encountering the same Chinese price sensitivity that has eventually and fundamentally reined in previous rallies over the last two years,” JP Morgan said in a note this week.
This reaction can be seen in a sharp growth of copper inventories in top metals consumer China this week: warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange reported a 34% jump in copper inventories to 108,142 tons on Friday, the first net weekly increase since mid-March.
The initial optimism about the 90-day pause agreed by Beijing and Washington on most of their retaliatory tariffs has faded with the market focus turning back to the health of the global economies.
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“Chinese traders are happy about the 90-day pause, but the market has remained uncertain about what is going to happen after the 90 days,” a Shanghai-based metals analyst said.
The Yangshan copper premium, a gauge of China’s appetite to import copper, eased this week to $100 a ton from $103, its highest since December 2023.
Among other London metals, aluminium slipped 0.7% to $2,472.50 per ton, zinc fell 1.0% to $2,698, lead lost 0.5% to $1,995, tin edged down 0.4% to $32,745 and nickel was down 0.9% at $15,640.
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