How to trade copper Copper trading strategies IG International

This approach suits investors who want to own physical copper and benefit from demand fluctuations without relying on intermediaries. However, unlike currencies or other financial assets, storing and transporting metal can be expensive. In addition, there is a risk that copper could be seized by the government in case of a severe shortage of base metals. After you’ve made these decisions, you can start looking at the copper market to find the right opportunity, which will depend on what kind of trading strategy you’re using. When the right option comes along, you’ll open your position and monitor it using trading tools, expert advice and daily market analysis and examining price charts to identify trends.

  • Instead, there are various investment products that allow you to access the copper markets without owning the asset directly.
  • The country is undertaking several initiatives, which are likely to increase their demand for the metal.
  • This vulnerability, coupled with high demand for the asset across a number of industries, makes for a highly liquid and volatile market.
  • CFDs are leveraged products, which means that you are only required to put down a fraction of the full value of your position in order to gain full market exposure.

What moves the price of copper?

Strategies in these areas how to trade copper are crucial for traders of all levels of experience. You will need to apply a market analysis approach to identify good trading opportunities and pinpoint the best moments to buy and sell. Commodity CFDs enable you to trade on the rising (or falling) prices of raw materials.

Spot Market

However, buying and storing physical reserves of copper is unlikely to appeal to most investors. The practicalities of shipping and storage would be too challenging and costly. Instead, there are various investment products that allow you to access the copper markets without owning the asset directly. If it gets expensive enough, homebuilders and manufacturers will turn to alternatives like aluminium and zinc.

Create a risk management strategy

In recent years, copper has been increasingly in demand, especially in connection with the development of renewable energy technologies and the electric vehicle market. If you want to get started with copper trading, VT Markets offer several ways to gain exposure to this market and begin trading. To start using our live trading environment, you’ll first need to create a trading account. This step only takes a few minutes, after which you can choose the asset and trading method you want to use. You can use our demo account to simulate trading, hone your strategies and grow in confidence. Use our technical indicators, analysis tools and the latest market insights to optimise your approach to trading copper or utilising any other trading product.

Pros And Cons Of Copper Trading

In fact, CFD brokers provide leverage and margin so you can get the most out of your trading account. Having said that, you must remember that leverage works the same way in reverse, it increases the profit potential but also the risk of losing your money. Therefore, you will have to find the right leverage ratio in which you can control your account balance. CFDs and forex (FX) are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.

Day trading requires a high degree of self-discipline and emotional control. Some of the most well-known proprietary trading firms allow new traders to manage a non-profitable trading account for at least six months before they start to generate consistent profits. Copper is an essential commodity to the world’s growth and to the development of our society.

Copper is sought after in industrial production, while silver is attractive both in terms of investment and manufacturing. However, liquidity and volatility should be taken into account, as they may also affect the long-term value of copper. Chile is the world’s largest copper producer, accounting for about 27% of global output.

Careful analysis and selection of the optimal strategy will help minimize risks and maximize profits. Futures are suitable for experienced traders and institutional investors, as they require margin collateral and carry high risks due to the volatility of copper prices. There are various copper futures markets that you can trade in, including COMEX copper on the New York Mercantile Exchange and LME copper, which is the copper futures market on the London Metal Exchange. Different exchanges have different trading hours according to where they’re located. You may want to take this into account when considering how you will monitor your open copper trading positions.

  • With this type of contract, you speculate on the price of the commodity at a set date and time in the future.
  • Investments in ETFs or shares of mining companies, on the other hand, are better suited for long-term investments.
  • Yet, whenever the price breaks through a resistance or support level and the consolidation status ends, a trader will look to buy or sell the trend.

China and the Democratic Republic of Congo rank third, each accounting for 8%. Another recommended indicator is a Fibonacci retracement that uses horizontal lines to determine entry and exit levels based on support and resistant levels. The benefit of Fibonacci retracement levels is that it does not only help identify market trends but also helps you find trading opportunities inside a consolidated market. Copper trading hours will depend on the opening times of the metal exchange and online brokerage.

How mutual funds can help you spread risk and grow your portfolio

You can do this by opening a position to ‘buy’ copper if you think the price will increase, or a position to ‘sell’ copper if you think it will decline. Your decisions about which direction to trade in should be based on the analysis you have chosen to perform and the copper trading strategy you have made. During an economic slump, demand for copper and other industrial metals declines, potentially driving prices down. However, if you buy metal at an attractive price, you can earn high profits in the long term.

A consolidating market is identified as a market that traded in range-bound, meaning sideways moving market. Market consolidation occurs at a time when supply and demand are roughly equal and the copper market is often in a state in consolidated mode. Popular copper stocks include Lundin Mining Corp (Canadian), Glencore (Swiss), BHP Biliton (Australian) and LS-Nikko Co (South Korean). These companies are all major players in the mining, production and distribution of copper. Tight spreads and no/low commission copper trading brokers should rank highly.

You can mitigate the risk of trading copper by attaching stops and limits to your positions. Not only do stops enable you to define the level that you want to close your trade at, but limits can help you to lock in profits by setting a level to realise your profits at. This trading method is popular with traders seeking to profit from copper price fluctuations without the need to physically own or store copper. Options provide a flexible way to participate in copper price movements, whether by betting on price increases, protecting against price declines, or employing various strategies to capitalize on market conditions.

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