It’s a tale of two metals that are fundamental to China’s outlook: while iron ore’s on a tear, copper is under heavy pressure.
In Singapore, SGX AsiaClear iron ore futures spiked toward $70 a metric ton, trading 2.8 percent higher at $69.57 at 8:45 a.m. in London. By contrast, copper sagged 1.4 percent to $6,120 a ton on the London Metal Exchange.
The “ferrous market is a regional market,” Zhu Yi, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said by phone from Hong Kong, adding that it’s been aided by recent production curbs, the State Council’s stimulus measures, and sentiment is fairly bullish. “Copper is a more global product, a barometer of the global economy. Sentiment has been greatly affected by the trade war.”