London Metal Exchange sees largest weekly copper inflow since 2020, breaking 42-day drought

After 42 consecutive days of declining stockpiles, the longest such streak since 2014, copper inventories at the London Metal Exchange just snapped back in dramatic fashion. Weekly inflows exceeded 35,000 tonnes, the largest weekly buildup the exchange has seen in years, with a single day on August 18 accounting for somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 tonnes alone. That daily figure represents the biggest one-day increase since April. How the squeeze built, and how it broke By August 14, LME copper stocks had fallen to 204,975 tonnes after those 42 straight sessions of declines. Nearly half of the available metal sitting in warehouses was already earmarked for withdrawal, meaning the real usable supply was even thinner than the headline number suggested. That scarcity pushed copper prices to record territory near $14,500 per tonne earlier in August. The cash-to-three-month premium had ballooned past $500 per tonne. Trafigura Group, one of the world’s largest commodity trading houses, played a central role in breaking the logjam. The firm’s deliveries helped drive a 75% rise in available stocks over the course of a single week. The result was immediate. That cash-to-three-month prem...