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Central Banks keep gold rally

Central banks are expected to help keep gold’s stunning rally going this year with buying aimed at further diversifying reserves away from the dollar due to risks stemming from U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies.

Spot gold hit its latest record at $3,167.57 a troy ounce on Thursday for a gain of 19% since the start of 2025 and a hefty 71% rise since the end of 2022.

“Emerging market central banks currently hold around 10% of their assets in gold. They should really hold 30% of their assets in gold,” said BofA commodity strategist Michael Widmer.

“From the central banking perspective (uncertainty) means less incentive to add Treasuries into portfolios and more incentive to actually de-dollarise it,” he said.

Source – Reuters

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Gold futures rising

Gold price have risen from Wednesday’s record close, propelled by fears that Trump’s tariffs will continue to hammer stocks and expectations that central banks will continue to hoard the precious metal. Gold futures for April delivery settled Wednesday at $3,139.90 a troy ounce, the latest notch in their 19% climb this year.

Source – The Wall Street Journal

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Freeport – McMoRan Inc is developing new technology

After 154 years of digging at Morenci, all the easily recoverable copper has been mined. Left behind are towering piles of waste rock that hold nearly 10 million tons of the metal seen as critical to global electrification. It’s a cache that could prove key to President Donald Trump’s ambition to boost US production of critical minerals.

Freeport-McMoRan Inc., which owns Morenci, is trying to develop technology that can burrow within those gigantic waste piles and extract low-grade copper that miners previously saw as too expensive and difficult to process.

“For a long time, we just didn’t think it was possible to recover any of this stuff,” said Robert Pollock, Morenci’s site manager, gazing up at a waste pile the size of a Manhattan office building. “But now, all this historical copper – we’re going after it.”

Source – Bloomberg

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Copper up, investors confused

Copper prices drifted higher on Wednesday as investors waited for details of U.S. reciprocal tariffs, but tin extended a rally to its highest in nearly three years on supply fears.

Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.2% at $9,711 a metric ton by 0953 GMT after slipping to its weakest in three weeks at $9,668.50.

“Investors are confused, they’re uncertain about the outlook. It’s mostly tariff-related, although there’s also global conflict, currency debasement and confusion around central bank policy,” said Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Panmure Liberum.

“Aluminium gives you an insight into what copper might do. It has gone through the first phase of factoring in the cost of tariffs and now it’s going into the second phase, where demand is deteriorating,” Price said.

Source – Business Recorder

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Chile’s Codelco sending copper to India

Chile’s state-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said on Wednesday it would supply copper concentrates to India’s Adani Group’s $1.2 billion smelter, the world’s biggest single-location plant of its type.

The supply will begin this year, said Codelco

Codelco also separately signed a preliminary agreement with Hindustan Copper to cooperate on exploring and processing minerals.

Source – Reuters

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“Liberation Day” tariffs!

Stocks recoiled on Wednesday, while safe-haven gold held near record highs as a nervous world awaited details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff plans and investors fretted about the risks of an intensifying global trade war.

“Whatever’s announced today, I doubt very much will be the framework that’s in place in, say, nine months’ time because we know there’ll be negotiations around this,” Daiwa Capital economist Chris Scicluna said.

“It’s very difficult to predict with any confidence what the ultimate impact is going to be, whether broadly, economically, in terms of rates or in terms of stock markets,” he said.

“Investors are hoping for some clarity, and perhaps the start of the deal-making phase. But tariffs are already weighing on business sentiment, and this will probably feed through into lower global economic activity in the coming months,” said Ben Bennett, Asia-Pacific investment strategist at Legal & General Investment Management.

Source – Reuters

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Copper is trading higher than earlier this year

Despite the losses of the last few days, the Copper price on the Comex is up a good 25 percent since the beginning of the year, almost on a par with tin. But on the LME, too, Copper is trading around 10 percent higher than at the beginning of the year, Commerzbank’s commodity analyst Barbara Lambrecht notes.

Source – FX Street

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Canadian copper miner drops $20bn arbitration

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

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Copper doing well in 2025

Copper prices in the U.S. have surged ahead of those in the rest of world and hit a record last week, a sign the mere threat of tariffs is lifting costs for domestic manufacturers.

Benchmark U.S. copper futures ended Monday at $5.02 a pound, up 26% this year. That compares with an 11% gain to $9,673 a metric ton, or about $4.39 a pound, on the London Metal Exchange, which is the global trading hub.

U.S. copper futures have been the top performer among major commodities in the first quarter. Prices for the industrial metal last week topped the record set in May but have since pulled back. Copper’s gains have outpaced the 21% rise in lumber futures, which was also fueled by uncertainty over tariffs.

Source – Wall Street Journal