Copper is a highly tradeable commodity.
Copper is priced in US Dollars; so the price of the dollar affects the price of copper.
Copper is gaining more traction as an investment option along with various other alternatives.
As looked at in our primer for copper, copper prices tend to do well when emerging markets are growing as demand derives from building and construction.
Trading strategies for copper can include both technical and fundamental analysis.
Copper is a global commodity that has several key uses throughout industry and is highly correlated to economic growth. Copper trading is often used by hedgers and speculators as protection or exploitation of future price movements. Both individuals and institutions are able to gain exposure to copper and copper trading, making this metal popular choice within the commodity trading spectrum.
One advantage of copper trading is accessibility. Copper is traded through a variety of avenues like futures, options, equities and CFDs. You can also gain exposure to copper via copper ETFs (exchange traded funds) like CPER (United States Copper Index Fund) or JJCB (iPath Series B Bloomberg Copper Subindex Total Return ETN).
Copper is a soft malleable metal with properties like gold and silver. It derives most of its demand from building construction, transportation equipment and electronic products. It is a strong conductor of electricity and heat, and therefore has a wide range of industrial uses which also leads it to trade in high volumes – a good thing for traders because it can lead to reduced spreads and potentially cleaner chart patterns.
Movements in the price of copper are heavily dependent on demand from emerging market economies like China and India. During times of economic growth, these nations demand large quantities of copper, the demand of which helps to increase the metal's price. Alternatively, during economic downturns demand for copper drops, price tends to fall as well. Traders should be aware of this dynamic when trading copper.
Many copper traders use technical and/or fundamental analysis to inform their trading strategy which helps a trader forecast whether the price of copper will rise or fall. Once a trader is confident in their forecast, he/she can buy or sell copper in an attempt to profit from price movements. In this way, a trading strategy can also help a trader to manage their risk, identify buy and sell signals in the market and set reasonable take-profit and stop-loss levels with aim of positive risk to reward ratios.
Copper trades on the CME Globex and CME ClearPort:
Sunday – Friday 6:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (5:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Chicago Time/CT) with a 60-minute break each day beginning at 5:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. CT)
US Dollar
Like many other metals, copper is inversely correlated (see chart below) to the US Dollar which means that when the US Dollar depreciates, copper prices generally rise and vice versa. It is important to note that this relationship is not one-to-one (delta 1) but does carry a high degree of correlation.
The reason why the US Dollar is an influencing factor on copper is because copper is priced in USD. For example, when the Dollar falls, a buyer will have to pay fewer of his/her domestic currency to purchase a specified amount of copper. Therefore, the commodity (copper) becomes cheaper to buy. This tends to cause an increase in demand and ultimately a rise in the price of copper.
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