Copper prices dropped by more than 3% from fresh 2-year highs reached on Friday but managed to stay above the pivotal $3.00 a pound level. Copper for delivery in December exchanged hands for $3.0135 per pound ($6,645 a tonne) by early afternoon amid heavy selling with contracts totalling 2.5 billion pounds of copper traded in New York.
The retreat of iron ore prices from six-and-a-half year highs hit last week accelerated on Monday with the price of Fastmarkets MB, benchmark 62% Fe fines imported into Northern China falling 4.1% to $119.82 a tonne on the back of rising port inventories and normalizing of supply from Brazil.
Big 3 cut down
Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto (NYSE:RIO), which had rallied to multi-year highs recently despite losing its top management over governance issues, was the hardest hit among the diversified majors with a loss of 5.2%. Rio is now worth $112 billion in New York. CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques was ousted and two other senior execs were shown the door as investors revolted over the company’s destruction of ancient Aboriginal rock shelters.
The world’s no. 1 mining company – BHP Group (NYSE: BHP) – fell by 4.2%, wiping out its gains for 2020 and pushing down its market value to $134 billion. BHP has been caught up in the Juukan Gorge scandal, acknowledging last week it was aware of Australian Aboriginal groups’ worries about the future of dozens of heritage sites before it sought and obtained approval to destroy them.
Vale (NYSE: VALE) shares shed 4.1%, bringing its year-to-date losses to 17.5% as the iron ore giant struggles to bring its operations back up to scale following the dam burst in Brumadinho in January last year.
On Monday, Brazilian prosecutors said despite two major deadly mining disasters since 2015, the Rio de Janeiro-based company has not complied with a number of commitments signed with authorities to prevent another disaster.
Shine off gold stocks
Considering how hard they’ve run in 2020, Monday’s damage among the top gold mining stocks was relatively light. Number one producer Newmont (NYSE: NEM) gave up 2.3% for a market value of $52 billion, while Barrick’s (NYSE: GOLD) losses were limited to 2.6%, affording the company a $50 billion valuation in New York.
Further down the field declines were sharper – Agnico Eagle (NYSE: AEM) fell over 3% in afternoon trade, AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU) traded down 4.7%, ADRs of Australia’s Newcrest (OTCMKTS: NCMGY) trading in New York gave up 5.1% and Kinross Gold (NYSE: KGC) declined 8.2%. Platinum and palladium producer Sibanye Stillwater (NYSE: SBSW) dropped 7.9%.
