“Doctor Copper”: copper returns to bad economic times, and nickel too …
The price of copper, as we know, is an important indicator of the industrial trend, because, being widely used in many sectors, from electronics to electrical engineering to construction to mechanics, demand grows or falls according to the expectations of the industrial performance. After a sharp decline that began in mid-March, and a rebound from mid-July, the price of this metal has started to decline again.
Copper futures stabilized above $ 3.60 per pound (454 grams) on Tuesday after slipping in the past two sessions as investors weighed shortage of metal inventories and clouded demand outlook from China, the main consumer. . The world's second largest economy showed disappointing economic data on industrial production, triggering a decline. Meanwhile, limited inventory and supply risks have kept copper prices low, with the London and Shanghai exchanges recently reporting inventory declines, while major producers have reported various supply disruptions that they have reduced production. Copper has moved in parallel with equity markets since mid-July, following global risk sentiment as investors continue to contend with high inflation, rising interest rates and slowing global growth.
Also in nickel, used in the production of steel alloys, especially stainless steel, shows a similar trend: after a rebound in July, the downhill is back:
The news of Chinese and Western production data, with Germany still far from emerging from the crisis, mean that the prices of raw materials are falling and unable to recover. What could affect, for some raw materials, could be the European production cuts linked to energy shortages. This effect, however, is not predictable and we will know it only in the next winter.
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The article "Doctor Copper": copper returns to bad economic times, and nickel too … comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/dottor-copper-il-rame-torna-a-segnare-brutto-tempo-economico-e-anche-il-nickel/ on Tue, 16 Aug 2022 09:46:45 +0000.