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Copper prices climbed for a sixth straight session on Tuesday, their longest winning streak in four months, as Chinese buyers stocked up ahead of holidays and dwindling inventories in Shanghai and London pointed to a physical market running short of metal — even as warehouses across the United States brim over.
COMEX copper for December delivery, the most active contract, rose as much as 1.6% to $6.8710 a pound in New York, coming within a whisker of its peak before a Sept. 10 report that the White House’s tariff plan had stalled knocked more than 5% off the price. Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange added 0.7% to $14,766 a tonne by mid-afternoon in London, within 1% of its $14,875 peak reached on Sept. 10. The most-traded contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange gained 1.2% to 111,320 yuan ($16,616) a tonne.
COMEX copper is up 21% in 2026.
The inventory picture is tight. Copper stocks in SHFE warehouses have slid 70% since early June, and cathode inventories in Shanghai, the country’s main trading and consumption hub, fell to 43,900 tonnes last week, the lowest since 2023, according to Shanghai Metals Market (SMM). Imported metal arriving in China has gone straight to fabricators rather than into warehouses, SMM said.
London is feeling the squeeze too. Cash copper settled at a $62 a tonne premium to the three-month contract on Monday, up from $26 a session earlier and a discount of $86 a week ago — a backwardation that signals buyers cannot wait for delivery. Cancelled warrants, metal already booked for withdrawal from LME warehouses, climbed a further 6,700 tonnes to 122,150 tonnes on Tuesday, equal to 48% of the 255,100 tonnes on warrant, leaving just 133,725 tonnes actually available to the market.
“Copper is finding support from tightening physical market conditions in China,” said Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING. Falling inventories, seasonal restocking and constrained spot availability are offsetting the uncertainty over U.S. tariffs, she said.
“Chinese are buying ahead of holidays and smelter shutdowns,” said Sandeep Daga, head of research at the Metal Intelligence Centre. China’s markets close from Sept. 25 to 27 and again from Oct. 1 to 7.
In sharp contrast, COMEX warehouses hold 696,204 tonnes of copper, some 69% of all exchange-monitored stock, after importers rushed metal in ahead of tariffs that Washington has yet to impose.
That pile is no longer growing. Stocks slipped last week for the first time since April, according to JEGross. With New Orleans, the main COMEX delivery hub, largely full and another 100,000 tonnes of African and South American copper due to arrive over September and October, the United States is fast running out of room to absorb more.
Not everyone is convinced the rally has further to run.
“I think it’s a little bit inflated up here. If it gets any higher, I think a lot of the producers in China are going to start selling, because they’re not convinced it’s going to stay this high,” said Robert Montefusco at broker Sucden Financial.
Mike McGlone of Bloomberg Intelligence warned that a broader market correction could take 20% to 30% off the copper price. Traders are also waiting on this week’s meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping for signals on trade and the health of the world’s two largest economies. The Federal Reserve’s quarter-point rate increase last week, its first since 2023, and the prospect of more to come remain the main drag on industrial metals.
Copper producers rose with the metal, extending a week of gains that has repaired some of the damage from the sell-off following the Sept. 10 peak.
Freeport-McMoRan, the largest listed copper producer, climbed 1.8% to $73.48 in New York by late morning, lifting its market value to $105.5 billion and trimming its loss for September to 3%. Southern Copper added 1.8%, extending the Mexican company’s lead over Rio Tinto for second place among the world’s biggest mining companies. First Quantum Minerals rose 3.1% in Toronto, taking its advance over the past week to more than 11% — the best showing among large copper producers.
Freeport’s Grasberg troubles in Indonesia, together with Ivanhoe Mines’ output cut at Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have removed some 600,000 tonnes from this year’s expected global supply, Sprott Asset Management said last week.
