Week in Review: Copper price strength; January auto sales; securing supply chains
Before we head into the weekend, let’s take a look back at the week that was and some of the metals storylines here on MetalMiner, including coverage of the copper price, how the Biden administration will handle the former Trump administration’s metals tariffs and much more.
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Week of Feb. 22-26 (copper price, aluminum tariff and much more)
- Stuart Burns on the copper price and the red metal’s overall bullish narrative.
- Rio Tinto released its annual report and Norilsk Nickel reported a fatal accident at one of its operations.
- Burns reviewed the impact of former President Donald Trump’s Section 232 aluminum tariff, in addition to its fate under the new Biden administration.
- The US steel sector’s capacity utilization rate bumped up to 77.0% last week.
- Meanwhile, US industrial production grew by 0.9% in January, the Federal Reserve reported.
- Japanese automotive component maker Kosei reached another aluminum supply deal with Russian aluminum giant UC Rusal.
- The copper price has continued to rise, as supply issues become more and more of a concern.
- In its latest earnings report, aluminum product maker Arconic cited weakness in aerospace demand.
- US metals shipments in January were down compared with shipment levels in January 2020.
- President Joe Biden signed an executive order that aims to review supply chains for several key materials, including rare earths and semiconductors.
- J.D. Power and LMC Automotive forecast US new-vehicle retail sales to rise by 3.3% in January.
- The Department of Commerce reviewed margins for anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum foil from China.
- The US trade deficit for goods reached $83.7 billion in January, the Census Bureau reported.
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