Copper analysts join hedge funds in bets on price drop

LONDON: Copper analysts are the most bearish in 12 weeks as the metal extends its worst start to a year in more than a decade on mounting concern that a supply glut will build as economies weaken. Nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to fall next week. Five forecast gains and four were neutral, making the proportion of bears the highest since January 4. Prices reached an almost sevenmonth low of $7,486.25 a tonne on March 19. Hedge funds are holding the biggest ever bet on a decline, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data that begins in 2006 show. Global copper inventories are already at a nineyear high and delays to Cyprus’ bailout prompted worries among investors that Europe’s debt crisis will worsen.


China tightened curbs on the property market this month to moderate prices. The nation’s manufacturing expanded at the slowest pace in five months in February and retail-sales growth slipped. Europe and China account for about 60% of the world’s copper consumption. “People built up big stockpiles in anticipation of a much stronger economic recovery than the one we’re actually seeing,” said Julian Jessop, chief international economist at Capital Economics in London. “There’s nervousness about financial markets and a lack of risk appetite. Even if demand does pick up, it can be met by existing stocks.”

COPPER PRICE

Copper fell 4.9% to $7,540 on the London Metal Exchange this year, the worst start since 2001. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI gauge of 24 commodities added 1.3% and the MSCI All-Country World Index of equities rose 5.9%. Treasuries fell 0.3%, a Bank of America index shows. Speculators have been getting more bearish for the past five weeks and held a net-short position of 25,719 futures and options as of March 19, CFTC data show. They held a net-long position of 24,531 contracts in December as prices headed for a 4.4% annual gain.

Stockpiles in warehouse monitored by the LME, the largest metals bourse, surged 78% since the start of January after dropping for the past three years. Inventories monitored by the exchange and those in Shanghai and New York stand at about 886,531 tonne, the most since November 2003 and equal to about four months of North American demand.

Copper fell for a second straight monthly drop as the 17-nation euro area remains mired in recession and Cyprus’s EURO 10 billion ($13 billion) bailout weighed on confidence. The island nation is the fifth country to seek a rescue since the euro crisis began in 2009. Unemployment in Germany, the region’s biggest economy, unexpectedly rose in March, the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Agency said.

CHINA’S GROWTH

China’s economy grew 7.9% in the fourth quarter. Expansion will accelerate to 8.3% in the second quarter before slowing through the end of the year, according to the median estimate of as many as 36 economists compiled by Bloomberg. Chinese refined copper imports slumped 12% in February to the lowest in 19 months, customs data show. Growth in the nation’s copper usage will still accelerate to 8% this year, from 3% in 2012, and stockpiles of the metal in the country will decline in the next several months, Goldman Sachs Group said in a March 27 report. The bank expects prices to rise to $9,000 in six months.