Copper Prices Fall as Investors Avoid Risky Assets

The copper prices They fell on Friday as risk aversion swept through financial markets and investors took advantage of taking profits after two days of rising prices.

At 12:30 GMT, three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was down 0.7% at $9,918 a tonne, after touching the psychological threshold of $10,000 on Thursday.

“Copper and the rest of the metals sector are cooling off a bit todaysaid Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen.

“We are running into some profit taking after that strong advance and it is also because we have a risk aversion sentiment in the stock market”, he added.

Stock markets fell following the late decline in the United States, as fears about the pace of the Fed’s monetary policy tightening and weaker-than-expected earnings weighed on investor sentiment.

But copper, often used as a barometer of global economic health, is on track to post a weekly gain of more than 2%, supported by supply concerns, low inventories at exchange-linked warehouses and a host of policies. expansionary in China, the main consumer of the metal.

The March copper contract, the most traded on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, ended the session 0.6% higher at 71,290 yuan ($11,246.61) a tonne.

Nickel in Shanghai rose as much as 5.2% to a record 179,780 yuan a tonne, but was down 0.4% on the LME at $23,695 a tonne, after touching $24,435 a day earlier, its high. highest since August 2011.

Aluminum fell 1.4% to $3,069 a tonne and zinc fell 0.1% to $3,646, but lead added 1% to $2,372 and tin was little changed at $43,500. .

With information from Reuters.