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LME copper drops with a muted risk appetite before a bumpy next week

LME copper drops with a muted risk appetite before a bumpy next week

Copper prices in London fell on Friday due to a lack of risk appetite, ahead of the deadline next week for U.S. broad reciprocal tariffs. This was due to deteriorating global growth prospects and an easing of stimulus to get copper to the U.S. before possible tariffs.

The benchmark three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange fell 0.5% to $9,799 per metric tonne by 1110 GMT, after having hit $9,739 as its two-week-low.

Metal, which is used in construction and power, has risen 12% so far this quarter. It's on pace to have its best growth quarterly in four years. This has prompted some to book profits.

The uncertainty is high, as U.S. president Donald Trump intends to announce reciprocal duties aimed at countries that are responsible for most of the U.S. deficit in trade on April 2, and his 25% tariffs already announced on auto imports will take effect on the third day of April.

On Wednesday, the expectation that Washington would spend months investigating whether it should impose new tariffs on copper imports was pushed back to weeks. This reduced the time available for arbitrage between the LME and U.S. Comex futures.

After hitting a record-high of $1,615 this week, the premium of Comex prices over LME, a benchmark for global markets, has eased down to $1,469 per ton or 15%.

Alastair Muiro, senior metals strategist with broker Marex, said: "Early resolution of tariffs removes some geographical pressures which had manifested themselves in a LME terms structure bid."

Munro said that the market speculated that, if Washington announced the copper tariffs in the near future and did not grant a exemption to the metal on the water already, then this copper would be redirected into the LME registered warehouses.

Since mid-February, the on-warrant stocks of copper in the LME System, which are at their lowest level since May, have seen a steep fall as traders raced to swap and redirect the supplies to the U.S.

Other metals include LME aluminium, which fell by 0.1% to 2,561 dollars a tonne, while zinc, lead, and tin all gained. Tin rose 2.9% to 36,245 dollars, while nickel increased 1.1% to 16,420. (Reporting and editing by Sonia Cheema; Polina Devitt)

(source: Reuters)