Copper Bouncing Back

Copper prices are fighting hard to recover lost ground this week with the futures market now trading up around 16% off the April lows. The market crashed from the late March highs around the 5.40 level as Trump’s tariff announcements sparked chaos across markets. The market shed around 25% from those YTD highs, stopping just short of printing fresh YTD lows, before buyers stepped in to drive price back up.

Risk Rally

A U-Turn by Trump last week, announcing a 90-day tariff suspension for countries which hadn’t applied countermeasures against the US, helped fuel a relief rally across risk markets.  While there is still a great deal of uncertainty over Trump’s trade policy, risk assets received a further boost this week in response to news that the US will exempt certain tech products from reciprocal tariffs as well as considering a pause on 25% auto tariffs.

US/China Trade Optimism

The exemptions on some tech products have been welcomed by China and are perhaps the first glimpse at a possible path towards negotiations between the US and China. While Trump’s rhetoric has remained hostile recently, there is a growing optimism that the two sides can begin working towards a deal. If incoming news flow reflects any positive developments in this area, copper prices looks likely to accelerate higher amidst a fresh rally in risk assets.

Technical Views

Copper

The rally off the lows in copper has seen the market breaking back above two important levels, most recently the 4.5785 level. Price is now back inside the broken bull channel too. While above this level, focus is on a continuation higher with 4.8010 the next challenge for bulls.