Copper for delivery in May was down 1.2% in afternoon trade, with futures at $4.1675 per pound ($9,165 a tonne) on the Comex market in New York.
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“The Chinese data are only really good at first glance … momentum has cooled to some extent,” Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann told Reuters.
Optimism on stock markets was supporting metals and strong demand during the second quarter — China’s traditional construction season — could lift copper further in the short term, but prices would fall later in the year, Briesemann said.
The Chinese economy grew by a record 18.3% year-on-year in the first quarter, but the expansion is expected to moderate later this year. Industrial output slowed in March to 14.1%.
In the US, retail sales rose by the most in 10 months in March.
Goldman Sachs this week raised its 12-month target for copper to $11,000 a tonne, while Citi recommended clients take on bullish copper exposure over the next few weeks.
Goldman Sachs metals strategist Nicholas Snowdon said environmental policies will drive a capex boom on par with the 1970s and 2000s over the course of the next decade and copper is the core of the green energy transition:
“We estimate nearly $16 trillion would have to go into green-focused infrastructure to achieve decarbonisation targets, compared to just $10 trillion in China during the last supercycle.”
(With files from Reuters)
