Zurich Even long-term market observers have never experienced this: within a few weeks, commodity traders bought up almost all of the copper that the London Commodities Exchange (LME) holds in their warehouses.
The inventory dropped from 240,000 tons at the end of August to around 14,000 tons at the beginning of this week. That is the lowest level since 1974. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the Swiss commodities trader Trafigura in particular secured large quantities.
The scarce stocks trigger strong price movements: copper for immediate delivery has increased in price by 25 percent since the beginning of October. The price of the industrial metal briefly climbed to over $ 11,000. In addition, a ton of copper for immediate delivery was now $ 1,000 more expensive than the same amount of reddish metal for delivery in three months. Usually the two prices differ by only a few dollars.
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