Quote:Production is failing to keep pace with demand in China and the rest of the world, where consumption is rapidly picking up Copper production is failing to keep pace with demand in China and the rest of the world, where consumption is rapidly picking up.

Copper, the world’s most important industrial metal, climbed above $9,000 a tonne for the first time since 2011 on Monday, fuelled by speculative bets on higher prices from China. The number of copper futures contracts outstanding on the Shanghai Futures Exchange has jumped sharply since the end of the lunar new year holiday, according to brokerage Marex Spectron.

After rising 8.1 per cent on Thursday and 6 per cent on Friday, open interest in those copper futures expanded a further 6 per cent on Monday to 365,000 contracts, as investors bet on further gains for the metal, used in everything from household goods to wind turbines.

Marex reckons the net speculative long position on the Shanghai exchange — the difference between bets on rising and falling prices — is more than 100,000 lots and close to the highest level since 2017. “It has been an exchange-led, speculative move but there are good reasons for it,” said Mark Hansen, chief executive of Concord Resources, a London-based commodity trader.

In early trading on Monday, copper rose as much as 4 per cent to $9,269 a tonne before pulling back to $9,060. The metal is already up 15 per cent this year, a performance that has boosted the stock prices of leading producers including Glencore, Freeport-McMoRan and Antofagasta.

(03-21-2021, 10:21 AM)Zombie.Hunter Wrote: now they'll be trying to break into occupied ones too!