Copper hit its highest recorded price in August, and supply cannot answer quickly because a new mine takes twelve to fifteen years, if drilling, permits and governments cooperate. The investment case is the gap between demand rising from about 28M tonnes today to 42M by 2040 and supply stalling around 2030. Two of the four demand engines, the AI build-out and electrification, also drive the tech trade, so bulls on data centres cannot be indifferent to the metal that wires them. x.com  x.com 

Copper miners have a long-term supply case because major copper discoveries have dried up. The world will face a very large copper imbalance as the years pass. x.com 

Copper will follow the AI trade lower, making it a good catch-up short. x.com 

Copper could see extreme demand from the AI buildout over the next few years, enough that $8,000 may end up being the Wave 5 target zone. x.com 

Copper's structural deficit does not yet look priced in, with the copper/gold ratio still near multi-decade lows. JPMorgan forecasts a 330kt copper deficit in 2026, AI data centers may need over 1 million tons a year by 2030, EVs use about 4x the copper of gas cars, new mines take 15-20 years to build, and ore grades have declined for decades. x.com 

Copper's rally is driven mainly by financial players rather than physical demand, making it unsustainable in the short term. Inventories keep rising against the shortage narrative, commercial hedgers are near multi-year shorts while CTAs hold multi-year highs, and China's credit impulse is deteriorating. The cycle and seasonality point to a peak in late August or early September, and a weekly rising wedge signals exhaustion. The long-term picture stays bullish after a reset into Q4 or Q1 2027. … Show more

Record copper import premiums signal imminent supply shortages. @robert_ivanhoe reports that the Yangshan premium broke its record, indicating scarce near-term supply in China. An Ivan Bebek chart using International Copper Study Group data shows preliminary global mine output down 1% year on year in January-July 2026, after eight straight years of growth. x.com  x.com 

Wall Street has not priced in that the world could be short 10M metric tons of copper by 2040 without many more major discoveries. x.com 

Copper is not a bullish play, as it is arguably used more as a transitional tool over the next two years. That holds even though NVIDIA's CEO said they will need more copper, alongside optics and CPO. x.com 

A copper super-cycle is coming because demand is exploding while supply shrinks. S&P Global says supply will decline 7% between 2025 and 2040 while demand grows 50%, and Bloomberg expects demand to grow 40% by 2050, driven by the energy transition, the AI buildout and robots. No new supply is coming over the next decade. Per the Kobeissi Letter, copper futures have hit a record high, up 22% this year and over 70% since January 2025. x.com  x.com