Excellent timing - text book actually! Add to myFT Copper prices...

Excellent timing - text book actually!


Add to myFT
Copper prices surge to near three-year highs
Analysts caught out as hedge funds buy record long position on electric vehicle hopes


The price of copper has jumped 20 per cent since the end of the May
YESTERDAY
by: Neil Hume, Mining and Commodities Editor

Commodity analysts have been caught on the hop by a sudden rally in the copper market that has driven the price of the industrial metal to its highest level in almost three years.

Copper has jumped 20 per cent since the end of the May, helped by positive economic data from China, the world’s biggest consumer of commodities, and a weak US dollar.

Investors have also piled into copper, a key source of earnings for major mining houses such as Glencore and BHP Billiton, betting that it could be one of the big beneficiaries from the growth of electric vehicles and advances in energy storage technology. In the past week hedge funds increased their net long position in Comex copper — the difference between bets on rising and falling prices — to a record 125,000 contacts.