Copper price blasts to 9-year high on demand optimism

Copper prices jumped to a nine-year high on Thursday as Chinese investors returned from a week-long holiday, adding impetus to a rally that has almost doubled prices since the height of coronavirus worries last March.

Copper for delivery in March was up 2.1% to $3.9025 a pound (about $8,603.58 a tonne) by 1 p.m. in New York, after a slight pullback from the previous day’s trading. Earlier in the session, the contract had reached $3.931 ($8,666.42), its highest since September 2011.

The resumed rally came amid massive volumes. By lunchtime more than 4.3 billion pounds of copper, worth $17 billion at today’s prices had changed hands.