Copper futures fell below $6.60 per pound on Monday, pulling back from last week’s record highs as traders locked in profits and assessed signs of tightening global supply. Market anxiety over potential disruptions from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s copper concentrate export ban eased after Goldman Sachs said it expects the measure to have no material impact on global copper balances.
Even so, sentiment remained cautious amid the risk of new US import tariffs on copper, which are continuing to divert metal away from international markets and into US warehouses. On the demand side, weekend data showed that both consumer and producer inflation in top consumer China slowed in July, underscoring persistently weak domestic demand.
Additional figures released on Friday revealed that China’s imports of unwrought copper and copper products fell 11.5% year on year to 425,000 tonnes in July. For the January–July period, imports declined 6.2% to 2.92 million tonnes.
