The price of copper in the Chinese market fell slightly last week. As of the end of last week, the spot copper price was 69,915 yuan/ton, down 1.24% from 70,795 yuan/ton at the beginning of the week, up 20.64% from the beginning of the year, and up 22.04% year-on-year.

Macro aspect: Last week, due to the rebound trend of the mutant virus epidemic in South Africa, there was panic in the market. In addition, both US stocks and oil prices fell, causing metals to be under pressure.

In terms of supply and demand: Although some areas still affect the output of smelters due to power curtailment, domestic electrolytic copper production rebounded slightly in November. Power cuts in some of the main copper rod production areas in East China and South China affected the start of construction. The domestic copper rod operating rate was 65.79%, down 2.31% on a week-on-week basis. The operating rate of wire and cable enterprises in October was 80.45%, a decrease of 3.87 percentage points from the previous month and a year-on-year decrease of 14.23 percentage points.

LME copper stocks continued to fall last week

The price of copper this year is higher than the price of the past two years, and the current price of copper has fallen slightly.

To sum up: the continued decline in copper inventory supports copper prices, but the demand is weak, coupled with the uncertainty of virus mutation, it is expected that the short-term copper price will remain volatile and weak.

Related listed companies: Jiangxi Copper (600362), Tongling Nonferrous (000630), Yunnan Copper (000878).