A near-term issue for copper is the ability of the Trump Administration to get its ambitious infrastructure efforts off the ground, something many market observers believe will not happen until next year. Additionally, if that effort does not approach the $1 trillion in expenditures promised by the president on the campaign trail, markets could be disappointed.
Trump’s audacious infrastructure plan has somewhat fallen out of the spotlight amid the administration’s other efforts in recent days, but that plan is widely seen as a catalyst for industrial metals, including copper.
“There is scope for stronger demand seasonally and a tightening of the physical market, especially in China, a key reason we maintain our mid-year price target of $6,600/ton ($3/pound). Supply disruptions have been meaningful … Treatment and refining charges have been under pressure … as some of the largest mines have faced outages,” according to the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch note seen in Barron’s.
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