Copper prices fell to a ten-day low on Thursday, 15 October 2026, extending losses into a third consecutive session, according to mining.com. The sell-off was driven by a hotter-than-expected US inflation reading that revived speculation about another Federal Reserve rate increase, a sharp decline in Asian technology shares, and the resolution of a labour dispute at Escondida that had threatened copper supply. On the Comex, the December contract was down 1.2% at $6.5810 per pound (about $14,508 per tonne) in late morning trading in New York, after touching $6.5245 earlier in the session.
The contract sat 4.5% below the record settlement of $6.89 per pound set on 9 September. The current losing run is the longest since June. On the London Metal Exchange, three-month copper eased 0.9% to $14,360 a tonne in official trading, after touching $14,289, its weakest level since 5 October.
Cash copper settled at $14,751 a tonne on Wednesday. LME inventories have fallen to 228,000 tonnes, down 8% since the start of the month. The most-traded contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange lost 1.9% to 108,940 yuan ($16,276) a tonne.
The macroeconomic backdrop turned against industrial metals this week. US consumer prices rose in September at the fastest pace in five months, according to data released on Wednesday. The reading put a rate increase later this month back on the table and lifted the Bloomberg Dollar Index to its highest level since May 2025.
Higher interest rates weigh on metals in two ways: they cool demand and raise the cost of holding inventory. Market sentiment was already fragile after South Korea’s Kospi index fell almost 8% on Thursday and entered bear market territory, as investors questioned how long the artificial intelligence spending boom can last. The sell-off in memory chips that began earlier in the week spread through Asian technology stocks.
Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com, told Reuters: “For copper, it’s a double whammy of the AI trade coming under pressure from the sell-off in chip stocks, and the impact of rising Fed rate hike odds.” Sucden Financial, in a note cited by Reuters, said the firm dollar and renewed rate pressure are likely to keep the complex defensive, with copper’s remaining supply risks providing only very limited support. Supply concerns eased considerably on Wednesday afternoon. Supervisors at BHP’s Escondida mine in Chile ratified the agreement reached hours earlier with the union, removing the threat of a stoppage at the world’s largest copper mine.
Mining.com reports that unionised workers at Antofagasta’s Centinela mine remain on strike and that Codelco’s El Teniente open pit is still shut following a landslide last week. GEM Mining Consulting had rated 5% of Chilean output at risk a week earlier, and that exposure has narrowed considerably, according to the same source. Antofagasta reported a 7% increase in third-quarter copper production and kept its 2026 guidance of 625,000 to 655,000 tonnes despite the Centinela strike.
Investors reacted more negatively to its 2027 outlook, which now stands at 630,000 to 690,000 tonnes, below the original range of 650,000 to 700,000 tonnes and under BMO Capital Markets’ estimate of 703,000 tonnes. The company also raised its cash cost guidance because of higher diesel prices. RBC analysts wrote that the outlook implies no growth on the original 2026 guidance, despite better grades at Los Pelambres and the Centinela expansion coming on stream.
The selloff has also removed much of the tariff premium from the Comex curve. The December Comex contract settled on Wednesday only $49 a tonne above the LME three-month official price, down from roughly $175 on Tuesday. Based on Macquarie’s calculations, cited by mining.com, the market is now pricing about a 2% probability that a 15% US import duty takes effect in January, compared with the 10% the bank implied at the end of September.
Macquarie expects a surplus of 223,000 tonnes this year and surpluses above 700,000 tonnes a year from 2027. The International Copper Study Group’s forecast of a 368,000-tonne surplus next year is broadly consistent with that view. BMO, by contrast, argues that the near-2 million tonnes held in the United States represents China’s strategic reserve relocated rather than surplus, and projects copper averaging $14,675 a tonne next year.
Copper producers' shares moved lower with the metal. Freeport-McMoRan fell 2.4%, and Southern Copper dropped 2.4%. BHP lost 1.4%, Rio Tinto 1.3% and First Quantum 1.7%, while Lundin Mining and Ivanhoe Mines declined 1.0% and 1.5% respectively.
Teck Resources, up 0.5%, was the only major copper producer to finish in positive territory. Antofagasta was the biggest decliner, down 6.4% to £33.40 in London, and its shares are now down 10% over the past week and flat for 2026. Polish state miner KGHM rose 2.4%, after the European Union placed its $2.4 billion of copper projects on a fast track last week.
Despite the week’s pullback, Comex copper remains up about 17% so far in 2026. Source: mining.com, with quotations attributed to Reuters.
Source: mining.com