METALS-Copper retreats from one-week high as inventories rise, confusion swirls on tariffs

By Eric Onstad

LONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Copper prices pulled back on Monday as inventories extended their rise and investors puzzled over the future of U.S. tariffs and Chinese trading ahead of reopening after a holiday.

Benchmark three-month copper CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange was down 0.3% at $12,930 a metric ton by 1455 GMT after hitting a more than one-week high of $13,050 earlier in the session.

LME copper has rebounded nearly 4% over the past four sessions, but is still well below a record peak of $14,527.50 hit on January 29.

"The fact that there are more visible inventories outside of the U.S. is a bit of a dampener, that may indicate a bit of softness in demand," said Nitesh Shah, commodity strategist at WisdomTree.

"But it's always hard knowing whether it's inventory that's going from off-exchange (warehouses) to exchange or simply just a weakening of overall demand."

Copper stocks in LME-approved warehouses rose 6,675 tons to 241,825 tons, data showed on Monday, the highest since March 2025, having surged 70% so far this year.

Metals, along with the dollar and equity markets, were hit by uncertainty after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs on Friday, leading him to quickly announce a new temporary tariff of 15% on U.S. imports from all countries. MKTS/GLOB

Traders were also waiting for the Shanghai Futures Exchange, which has been closed for the Lunar New Year holiday, to reopen on Tuesday.

"A big thing is what the Chinese are going to do when they come back in, whether there's going to be some extra domestic demand, because that's been lacking. We'll have to wait and see on that one," said Robert Montefusco at Sucden Financial.

LME nickel CMNI3 climbed 0.7% to $17,465 a ton after an official of top producer Indonesia said it was considering revoking the environmental permit of a company after a landslide hit a mine waste zone at its nickel processing hub.

In other metals, LME aluminium CMAL3 rose 0.3% to $3,112 a ton, lead CMPB3 added 0.1% to $1,967, tin CMSN3 jumped 3% to $47,975, while zinc CMZN3 fell 0.4% to $3,370.50.