In China, purchases from major consumers, including power cable makers, are still normal at this price level. Buyers are doing futures to hedge price swings and help reduce losses made on the spot market.

Prices can hit record highs at any time, but investors want to see room to take profits.

For now the rate hike will have mostly a psychological impact on the market. Investors will probably use this as a reason to push prices down before re-entering the market at lower levels.

The sell-off in oil damped demand for some metals yesterday in London and New York. Traders in China are worried there might be a chain reaction of funds selling metals to take profits.

The extent of the rate hike this time is fairly small. What is more important is whether or not more lies ahead. And even if there are further rate hikes, it is investment that will...

When spot prices hit 49,000 that affected consumption at first. But that was a month ago … now people expect prices to pick up. Traditionally in March and April consumption is higher than in January...

Funds are buying and China’s demand is still healthy. The sharp rise was to catch up with gains in London in the past week.

Over the Lunar New Year period the LME (copper) rose above $5,000, so from the Chinese point of view they had to close the gap and so Shanghai copper rose.

Before the Easter vacation there was short-covering in London as next Wednesday is also the settlement day there, so after the vacation there should be more stop-loss buying.