The Market Yelled “Copper Supercycle!”, Goldman Whispered “Relax”
Goldman Sachs Throws Cold Water on Copper’s Red-Hot Rally
Editorial Team (ET)December 5, 2025
In a week when copper punched through the psychological ceiling of $11,000 a tonne and kept climbing to a fresh all-time high of $11,540 on the London Metal Exchange, most traders were popping champagne. Goldman Sachs, however, just walked into the party and turned the music down. According to the Wall Street giant’s commodities team, this breakout is built on excitement about tomorrow’s shortages rather than any real scarcity today, and excitement, as every seasoned copper watcher knows, has a habit of evaporating fast.
Led by analyst Aurelia Waltham, Goldman’s latest client note strikes a decidedly cautious tone. The bank acknowledges the frenzy, record prices, frantic shipments into the United States ahead of possible tariffs, and trading houses warning that the rest of the world could soon be “left without copper cathodes”, but insists the underlying picture remains comfortable. Global refined copper supply is still running ahead of demand, Chinese consumption is actually shrinking, and the market is nowhere near the deficit many fear.
The numbers tell the story Goldman wants investors to hear. After years of predicting multi-hundred-thousand-tonne surpluses, the bank now sees only a modest 160,000-tonne surplus in 2026, smaller than previously thought, yet still a surplus. That slim buffer, combined with softening end-use demand, leads Goldman to its core conclusion: there will be no global copper shortage until at least 2029. In the meantime, they expect prices to stay “constricted” in a $10,000–$11,000 range through next year, with the current spike above that band looking increasingly like a head fake.
