This Morning in Metals: Copper prices continue October surge
This morning in metals news: copper prices have surged this month; median weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers are up; and WTI crude oil prices have ticked up since last week.
Each month, MetalMiner hosts a webinar on a specific metals topic. Explore the upcoming webinars and sign up for each on the MetalMiner Events page.
Copper price surge
Earlier today, MetalMiner’s Stuart Burns delved into copper market stresses, including short-term (at the very least) supply concerns.
“Mine supply is likely to improve, if not this year, then gradually in 2022,” Burns explained. “But that may fail to work through into lower refined copper prices if capacity bottlenecks in China are not resolved this winter. Indeed, the greater ore supply could result in higher treatment charges as refiners find they have the whip hand in a plentiful ore supply market but constrained refining capacity environment.
“In the short term, there appears more risk to the upside than the down.”
After trending mostly sideways for a few months, copper has awoken this month.
LME three-month copper closed last week at $10,275 per metric ton, up by 8.65% month over month. The price is now back to its highest level since May.
Median weekly earnings up 0.7% year over year
Median weekly earnings for full-time wage and salary workers reached $1,001 in Q3 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
The figure marked a 0.7% year over year increase.
Median weekly earnings for women reached $916 during the third quarter. Meanwhile, median weekly earnings for men reached $1,100.
WTI crude rises
The WTI crude oil price closed Monday at $82.44 per barrel, the Energy Information Administration reported.
The price is up by $1.92 per barrel from the previous week. Meanwhile, the price is up by $41.56 per barrel from the same point a year ago.
Get social with us. Follow MetalMiner on LinkedIn.
Leave a Reply