NEW YORK — Copper, this year’s best industrial-metal investment, may become the worst in the second quarter as demand slumps the most in three decades.
Known as the commodity with an economics Ph.D., copper risks losing its reputation as an industrial barometer because prices rose 40 percent by April 3, the best start to a year since at least 1986, just as the global economy contracted for the first time since World War II, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Prices rose as China, the largest user, agreed to stockpile as much as 400,000 metric tons, according to Macquarie Group estimates, enough to fill 18 Olympic swimming pools.
Copper will average $3,400 a ton this quarter, 21 percent below Friday’s closing price of $4,301 on the London Metal Exchange, according to the median estimate of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
