Copper prices fall due to the advance of the omicron variant and China’s economic slowdown

The copper prices They were down on Thursday as fears about the spread of the omicron variant of the coronavirus and slowing growth in China weakened the outlook for demand.

At 11:37 GMT, three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was down 0.3% to $ 9,412.50 a tonne, a 4% decline from last week. However, prices accumulate a 20% increase this year and remain close to the US $ 10,747.50 reached in May.

Global stock markets were trading lower after the United States and France reported their first omicron cases and countries around the world tightened travel restrictions.

Metals have held up much better than oil, which has fallen about 15% in the last week, WisdomTree analyst Nitesh Shah said.

“This underscores the strength of copper demand and the likelihood that it will exit this period with structural strength.“, said. “As long as the market thinks about medium-term growth, copper should hold up quite well”.

Copper has been boosted by stimulus measures issued by governments and by expectations of the construction of infrastructure for power lines.

China’s government advisers will recommend that the authorities set an economic growth target for 2022 of 5% to 5.5%, below the “more than 6%” set for 2021, according to sources.

Chile’s state-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, expects the average price of the red metal to be in the range of US $ 3.80 and US $ 3.90 per pound next year, CEO Octavio Araneda said on Wednesday.

With information from Reuters.