Okay, so I wanted to figure out what’s up with the price of copper in the US in 2024. It’s something I’ve been curious about, so I dug into it and here’s what I found.
First off, I started by searching online for recent info about copper prices. I saw some reports saying that the price went up a lot earlier in the year, even hitting $5 a pound at one point in May. That’s a big jump! But it looks like it didn’t stay that high, and it dropped back down to around $4 a pound later on.
Then I tried to find some predictions for the rest of the year. One source, Commodity Insights, thinks that the average price on the London Metal Exchange will be around $9,307 per metric ton for 2024. To be honest, I had to look up what a metric ton is – it’s about 2,204 pounds. So, doing some quick math, that’s roughly $4.22 a pound. They also think it’ll go up a bit more in 2025, to about $9,825 per metric ton, or around $4.46 a pound.
- Found reports of copper hitting $5/pound in May 2024.
- Saw predictions of it averaging $4.22/pound for the year.
- Noticed it might go up slightly in 2025.
I also found some news from Chile. They were talking about how their state copper commission, Cochilco, upped their average price prediction for 2024 to $4 a pound. That’s a little lower than the Commodity Insights prediction, but still in the same ballpark.
Next, I wanted to understand why the price was moving around so much. Some articles mentioned that copper is used in a lot of different things, so its price depends on how much people are buying it worldwide. One article talked about a stable price in the US and China. Others talked about how the market is pretty complex, and it can be hard to predict exactly what’s going to happen.
I also stumbled upon some info about a big price spike back in 2021. It said there was a shortage of copper compared to how much people wanted, and that drove the price up to a record high of over $10,000 per metric ton at one point. That’s over $4.50 a pound – pretty crazy!
After that, I looked for the most recent price I could find. One source said that as of November 20, 2024, the price was around $4.12 a pound. That fits with what I saw earlier about it coming down from the $5 high in May.
I also found out that copper is traded on the New York Commodity Exchange, also known as Comex. That’s where a lot of the price information comes from.
Then, I saw some really up-to-date numbers. One report said that just this past Tuesday, the price went down a little bit, by about 1.09%, to $3.9957 a pound. And then another one said that on Thursday, it went back up to $4.3622 a pound. So, it’s definitely bouncing around a lot.
Overall, I feel like copper prices are going to be higher in 2024 than they were before.
I know some people are saying it might be a good investment. I even saw that Bank of America raised their average price estimate from $3.91 to $4.23 a pound. So, they seem pretty sure it’s going up. I don’t have any plans, but I do feel like copper is going to be higher in 2024, I’ll keep an eye on it, just out of curiosity.
Anyway, that’s what I found out about copper prices. It was a pretty interesting little research project! I hope this is helpful for anyone else who’s wondering about it.
