London copper rebounded from its lowest close in a week on Monday. Benchmark three month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.7 percent at 14,251 dollars a tonne in Reuters reporting, and the site market tables put United States copper at 6.52 dollars a pound, up 1.02 percent. Bloomberg tied the recovery to a subsiding technology stock rout and to lower oil prices, which eased fears about global growth.
The physical market is tighter than the futures tape suggests. Reuters reported that the Yangshan premium, the extra amount Chinese importers pay over LME prices for delivered metal, is around 200 dollars a tonne, near its highest in over a decade, and that inventories tracked by the Shanghai Futures Exchange are down more than 75 percent in six months. Copper has also been flowing into United States warehouses ahead of a possible tariff on refined copper imports, leaving other regions short of deliverable stock.
Supply expectations are moving the same way. Chile’s state copper commission Cochilco has cut its 2026 production outlook for the world’s largest producer, a downgrade covered in this site’s October 31 reporting, and Shanghai Metals Market noted that tight supply and delayed arrivals pushed Shanghai spot premiums to fresh highs, with the front month backwardation widening further.
Friday’s session showed the other side of the market. Shanghai Metals Market reported LME copper closed down 1.55 percent in Friday’s night session on long liquidation, with open interest of 260,600 lots, down 1,585 lots on the day, while the most traded SHFE contract fell 0.87 percent. The pattern is a crowded paper long being trimmed into a physically tight market, which is why Monday’s recovery had support underneath it.