The volatility in global copper stocks this year has benefited trading volumes across both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Shanghai Futures Exchange, while the London Metal Exchange's inventory has fluctuated widely and dropped to a four-month low this week.
LME copper stocks fell to 283,375 tonnes on Wednesday May 30, the lowest since January 24. Stocks have rebounded sharply to 311,525 tonnes as of Thursday following a large 28,150 tonne delivery, but remain 20% lower than this year's peak of 388,175 tonnes recorded at the end of March.Fresh cancelations of copper material on the LME, which represent metal earmarked for removal, reached 103,350 tonnes in May, against April's figure of 127,600 tonnes. Cancelations in the past two months have been much higher than in each of the first three months of the year, which averaged around 40,000 tonnes per month.The fall in LME stocks, which happened against a backdrop of a global copper supply deficit, contributed to a tightening of the LME cash/three-month spread to a contango of around $6.50 per...