Copper Bottoming?

Copper often seems to function as a type of bellwether for the entire commodity sector. As fears of a global economic slowdown have intensified, copper prices have been hammered lower. Chinese buying just below the $4.00 level had kept the market supported but once that evaporated, there was a general dearth of buying. That allowed the bears to press the price into downside sell stops which have then fed on themselves.

However, there are some preliminary signs that the bleeding in copper might be coming to an end. The red metal seems to have found support just above the $3.00 level; a level closely corresponding to horizontal chart support and just a tad above the technically significant 50% Fibonacci retracement level of the rally off the 2008 low and the peak early this year.

The chart damage has been severe however so it is going to take further work to repair both the technical picture and the mental state of some of the badly bruised bulls. The spike off of support is a first step but we will need to see some confirmation for the remainder of this week.

If this is the case and copper has bottomed, it will serve to stop the rampant selling in the silver market. Some of that might be showing up today as silver has put in a massive spike off the $26 level.