December 29 London Morning Review

Industry news: The LME on Wednesday announced the highest global warehouse rents
for metals such as copper, aluminium and zinc from 1 April 2017.
In September, the LME implemented final reforms to limit soaring warehousing costs, the latest in a three-year series of reforms by the LME
.

Stocks: As of December 28, LME copper stocks reported 331,100 tons, down 3,425 tons per day, much higher than the average inventory value of 230,000 tons during the year, and the high point of stocks during the year was 379175 tons
.

Copper prices breached the $6,000 a tonne mark in November after Trump won the U.
S.
election and raised expectations
for infrastructure spending and consumption growth.
But the U.
S.
accounts for only about 8% of global copper demand, and the focus quickly shifted to China
.
China accounts for almost half of global demand and is expected to remain solid
in the coming weeks.
From a demand perspective, Citi analysts said, China remains the dominant force
in determining the outlook for copper next year.
But recent commitments from Japan, Canada and, more recently, the United States on infrastructure spending have brought more positive sentiment
to the copper market next year.

Copper prices on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose on Wednesday as expectations of recent price declines, reduced inventories and increased demand from major consumer China spurred investors back into the market
.
At 17:00 London time on Dec.
28 (01:00 EDT Dec.
29), three-month copper closed up 1.
4% at $
5,545 a tonne.
Copper prices fell to a one-month low of $5,419.
50 last week, a cumulative decline of more than 10%
since the end of November.