The central bank cut the reserve requirement to improve the short-term copper price [institutional review]

Published: Apr 18, 2022 09:25

Macro: the people's Bank of China will cut the reserve requirement by 25 basis points across the board, releasing long-term funds of about 530 billion yuan; the equivalent parity will continue to be 150 billion yuan MLF, and the interest rate will still be 2.85%. March 70 city house prices: the number of cities decreased compared with the previous month, the month-on-month increase of house prices in first-tier cities decreased, and the second and third lines were flat or narrowed compared with the previous month. The Ministry of Transport: make every effort to do a good job in ensuring the smooth flow of highways, strengthen the service guarantee of employees, establish a unified and standardized pass system, classify and accurately do a good job in the traffic management of freight vehicles, and make every effort to ensure the smooth and orderly flow of waterway transport channels. Shanghai Port container transport guarantee work. Industry: SMM: in March, the operating rate of refined copper rod enterprises was 66.16%, an increase of 19.74% from the previous month, and a decrease of 2.06 points compared with the same period last year. Tongling Nonferrous Jinguan Copper smelter technical transformation capacity increased by 80,000 tons / year. Chilean copper production is expected to be 5.78 million tons in 2022, up 2.6 per cent from a year earlier, according to the Cochilco report. [trend intensity] Copper trend strength: 0 Note: the value range of trend intensity is an integer in the range of [- 2]. The degree of strength is classified as follows: weak, weak, neutral, strong, strong,-2 means the most bearish, 2 means the most bullish. [views and suggestions] The copper market was closed overnight, and the pressure of Shanghai copper was 75000 yuan / ton. The people's Bank of China will cut reserve requirements by 25 basis points across the board, and the warm wind of real estate policy will be good for market risk sentiment. Copper concentrate is in abundant supply, and the copper concentrate processing fee TC has climbed above US $80 / tonne, but the supply disturbance of copper mines in Chile and Peru remains strong. In terms of refined copper, a smelter in Shandong is still in a state of shutdown. At the same time, the risk of sulphuric acid expansion in the northern region has intensified, and a number of domestic smelters have begun to gradually overhaul, and the output of refined copper is expected to be under pressure. The supply and demand of recycled copper is weak, the import loss is narrowed, and the price gap of fine waste is enlarged, but the local shortage of recycled copper is aggravated by the epidemic, and the operating rate of recycled copper rod is still on the low side. Domestic warehouse receipt inventory increased, LME copper warehouse receipt inventory rebounded, and the proportion of written-off warehouse receipts decreased. The rising water of domestic spot to futures fell, the rising water of Shanghai copper rose in recent months, and the spot discount of LME copper expanded. On the whole, the people's Bank of China cut reserve requirements, which is good for the prices of risky assets. From a fundamental point of view, domestic copper warehouse receipt inventory is still low, spot continues to rise, etc., temporarily support copper prices. In the later stage, it focused on the recovery of domestic terminal consumption and the geopolitical influence of Russia and Ukraine.

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