Metal Trading
The exchange-based buying and selling of physical and derivative metal contracts, centered on venues like the London Metal Exchange and Comex where warehouse stock levels and price spreads are tracked and published.
Covered in 4 MetalsCost.com News Intelligence articles, most recently on October 21, 2026.
Coverage
Copper's Record Run Owes More to US Tariff Policy Than to AI Demand, LME Week Panel Says
Traders own most of the copper stockpiled in the US.
Shanghai's State-Backed Port Operator Is in Talks to Buy an LME Warehouse Firm
Ownership of LME storage could shift.
Copper Drops 4.4% From Its Record High After the White House Delays a Tariff Decision
Traders who built positions around an imminent US tariff decision are now unwinding those bets, sending copper into exchange warehouses instead of US stockpiles and pulling prices down sharply from their record.
Russian Aluminium Now Makes Up 95% of LME Exchange Stocks as Chinese Copper's Share Grows Too
A shrinking LME buffer increasingly concentrated in one or two countries of origin gives traders and industrial buyers a less genuinely diversified backstop against regional supply disruptions than the total stockpile figure alone suggests.
