Today, the most-traded BC copper 2601 contract opened at 83,170 yuan/mt, fluctuated downward initially to touch a low of 82,230 yuan/mt, then fluctuated considerably, continued to fluctuate upward after the daytime session opened, approached a high of 83,680 yuan/mt near the close, and finally settled at 83,320 yuan/mt, up 1.04%. Open interest fell to 4,930 lots, down 569 lots from the previous trading day, while trading volume reached 1.17 lots. On the macro front, the US core PCE price index annual rate for September came in at 2.8%, below market expectations and hitting a three-month low, leading the US dollar index to close lower and supporting copper prices. Meanwhile, Fed Chairman candidate Hassett sent hawkish signals, and with the US Fed's interest rate decision approaching this week, the market overall maintained a wait-and-see attitude. On the fundamentals side, supply side, domestic copper arrivals were relatively low, leading to a tight supply landscape; demand side, affected by high copper prices, downstream purchasing sentiment turned cautious. Inventory side, as of Thursday, December 28, SMM copper inventories in mainstream regions across China increased by 1,400 mt from Monday to 160,300 mt.
The most-traded SHFE copper 2601 contract settled at 92,970 yuan/mt. Based on the BC copper 2512 contract price of 83,320 yuan/mt, its post-tax price is 94,151 yuan/mt, resulting in a price spread of -1,181 between the SHFE copper 2601 contract and BC copper, maintaining an inverted spread which narrowed compared to the previous day.
