“Shanghai premiums being so low, it is more profitable for traders to sell in many other locations,” Ivan Szpakowski, a commodities strategist at Citi Research, said in a Wall Street Journal article. “The phenomenon that we are seeing is premiums are higher when the vessel is farther away from China’s shores and as it approaches, the premium falls.”
The higher premiums to sell copper in other overseas markets suggest that global demand still remains strong.
Other copper funds include iPath Pure Beta Copper ETN (NYSEArca: CUPM), which is down 6.2% year-to-date, and the United States Copper Index ETF (NYSEArca: CPER), which is down 6.6% year-to-date.
iPath Dow Jones-UBS Copper Subindex Total Return ETN
For more information on copper, visit our copper category.
Max Chen contributed to this article.