LONDON: Copper fell to its lowest in almost two weeks on Thursday as exchange stocks rose and US President Donald Trump retracted a threat to impose tariffs on countries opposed to his taking over Greenland.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 1percent to USD12,686 per metric ton in official open outcry activity. It touched USD12,621 earlier in the session, the lowest since January 9.
Trump on Wednesday ruled out using military force to take over Greenland and said he would no longer be imposing tariffs on European allies that he had threatened to put into effect on February 1.
“The anxiety drops out of the market and everything pulls back because the primary driver is no longer at play,” Panmure Liberum analyst Tom Price said. Investors will start withdrawing money from their cautious positions, which will likely hit commodity prices over the next few days, he added.
The cash LME copper contract was trading at a USD78 per ton discount to the three-month forward, after surging to a more than USD100 premium on Tuesday, indicating little need for short-term metal. Top metals consumer China, meanwhile, churned out a record volume of refined copper in December.
LME copper stocks have risen to 168,250 tons, the highest since May 2025, after 8,725 tons of inflows into warehouses in the United States this month. Still, LME stocks are dwarfed by the more than 500,000 tons of copper in Comex warehouses. The arbitrage to ship copper to Comex from the LME has significantly narrowed or closed, traders said.
“A negative arb incentivises shipments back to the LME, helping explain the stock increase, while Comex inventories continue to rise in parallel,” Sucden Financial said in a note.
Aluminium edged down 0.1percent to USD3,113.50 a ton, zinc gained 0.5 percent to USD3,191, lead added 0.1percent to USD2,023, nickel dipped 0.5 percent to USD17,900 and tin dropped 0.3 percent to USD51,275.
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