Looking for another sign of how nervous investors are about tariffs? Copper prices plummeted 7% Friday to about $4.50 a pound in New York. Copper has plunged nearly 15% since hitting a 2025 peak price of about $5.25 in late March. But copper is still up about 13% this year. That may not last much longer.
Source – Barrons
Copper’s rise is likely led by Trump’s tariffs, weakening its appeal as leading indicator for risk assets, including cryptocurrencies.
Source – Coin Desk
UBS and Commerzbank raised their gold price forecasts on Friday, joining other investment banks as investors drive the safe-haven metal to record highs amid the economic uncertainty sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies.
Trump’s tariffs have roiled financial markets, stoking fears of inflation and a global recession. While he has paused most duties, he has hiked those on China to 145%, prompting Beijing to lift its tariffs on U.S. goods to 125%.
“We expect gold’s rally to extend into next year and for prices to stabilise at higher levels further out,” UBS analysts said in a note
Source – Reuters
In less than five hours June 13, collectors and the public at large placed sufficient orders to exhaust the maximum authorized mintage of 100,000 Proof 2025-W American Eagle, 250th Anniversary United States Army privy-marked 1-ounce silver dollars, launched for sale at $105 per coin.
The remaining 90,000 available for the June 13 sales launch were sold within five hours.
“Almost immediately, we became aware of concerns regarding the wait times customers in the waiting room were receiving, with some customers initially receiving estimates of 8 hours to ‘more than a day.’ We also encountered issues with payment processing, which were exacerbated by bots and people trying to avoid the household order limits.
For the waiting room, the Mint is looking for ways we can improve this customer experience. The waiting room looks at current traffic trends when calculating wait times.
Source – Coin World
First Quantum decision suggests movement to resolve investor dispute with Central American government
Canada’s First Quantum Minerals on Monday said it was stepping back from a multibillion-dollar arbitration demand against Panama’s government over the closing of one of the world’s largest copper mines.
Source – Financial Times
“There is incredible demand for physical gold in New York markets,” said Peter Spina, president and founder of gold news and information provider GoldSeek.com., referring to it as a “physical gold rush.”
“Those who are caught short physical metal are looking around and seeing a window closing here,” he said. They’re “desperately seeking physical metal before the price could jump overnight.”
“Meeting a surge in demand will always stretch capacity, but London vaults have been working overtime to service this London-New York flow,”
Source – Market Watch
President Donald Trump is taking a step toward granting the U.S. mining industry’s biggest wishes by singling out one metal as a focus of his domestic minerals policy: copper.
From talk of acquiring Greenland and its vast mineral wealth to prodding Ukraine for minerals in exchange for help fending off Russia’s invasion, Trump has made the raw materials of modern life a pillar of his foreign policy.
“Copper is, I think, the metal that is really the most critical because it is the electricity metal,” said Debra Struhsacker, a mining industry policy consultant. “The electricity demand is, I think, going to stay. And copper is indispensable for that.”
“Made in America, America first, starts with American mining and American miners that supported this president across the country,” National Mining Association president and CEO Rich Nolan said.
Source – The Associated Press
