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The 4 best copper cookware sets in 2021

Prices are accurate at the time of publication.

  • Copper cookware is known for its efficient and uniform heating, as well as its striking appearance.
  • The cookware can be expensive, but if properly cared for, it lasts longer than other materials.
  • Our top pick is by Williams Sonoma; it has a useful variety of pieces and durable construction.

Copper cookware is beautiful and offers superior heating than other types of cookware, but it has a reputation for being costly and finicky to maintain. Fortunately, if you choose the right set, it doesn’t have to be intimidating for home cooks to enter the world of copper cookware. “If you are committed to caring for and using the pans properly, then it can be a worthwhile investment,” said Fran Groesbeck, managing director at the Cookware Manufacturer’s Association (CMA).

According to Mac Kohler of Brooklyn Copper Cookware, copper is valued in the world of cookware for two main reasons: its speed of heating and cooling (thermal efficiency) and its ability to heat evenly across the entire cooking surface (diffusivity). For the home cook, this means a copper pan needs half the amount of heat to the same temperature as stainless steel or aluminum cookware, and you will get more even browning and cooking in all areas of the pan.

There are a lot of misleading products out there claiming to be “copper,” but are really just copper colored or have small amounts of copper in the construction (read more about them here). Copper cores or bases provide some of the efficiency of fully-clad copper and the pieces are more affordable, but we recommend looking for copper sets that feature a higher percentage of copper for maximum benefits. All our top picks are full copper exterior with a stainless steel or tin lining.  

Due to the higher average price of copper cookware sets, even our “budget” pick is still quite expensive. To spend less and still fully experience copper cookware, we recommend purchasing one or two pieces to add to your collection. Keep in mind that there are other cookware materials that are less expensive, easier to maintain, and still provide great heating, like hard-anodized aluminum or stainless steel.

Here are the best copper cookware sets of 2021

Best copper cookware set overall

Williams Sonoma Thermo-Clad Copper Cookware on counter, best copper cookware set 2021

Williams Sonoma

The Williams Sonoma Thermo-Clad Copper Set is an accessible way to bring copper cookware into your kitchen, pairing the benefits of copper with the ease of stainless steel.

Pros: Double-wall insulated lids, nonreactive interior 

Cons: Not the thickest gauge copper in this guide, stainless steel lining limits some of the diffusivity

The Thermo-Clad set gives you the experience of copper cookware for a lower cost than some other sets on the market. The 1.2 mm gauge copper exterior is thick enough to impart the heat efficiency of copper without substantially increasing the weight. The stainless steel lids are dishwasher safe, but the pots and pans should be hand washed with non-abrasive cleaners. 

While tin-lined copper is traditional and offers the best temperature control, stainless steel is a solid choice for the home cook. Stainless steel doesn’t diminish the heating capacity of copper too much, and offers a durable and nonreactive cooking surface. 

The copper will develop a patina over time, which can be polished off or left alone as it does not negatively affect cooking performance. Williams Sonoma suggests using copper polish or a combination of lemon and salt to clean the copper.

$1399.95 FROM WILLIAMS SONOMA
Originally $2145.00 | Save 35%
Best copper cookware set on a budget

Mauviel Copper Tryply Set, best budget copper cookware set 2021

Williams Sonoma

The Mauviel Copper Triply Set has four key pans that will cover almost all your cookware needs, and features a nonreactive stainless steel interior.

Pros: Dutch oven is a versatile size and shape, nonreactive interior

Cons: Thin gauge copper exterior

For under $1,000, you can experience most of the benefits of copper cookware with this 7-piece set. It includes the necessities for a new kitchen, or can add flair to the pieces you already own. This is still an expensive set because of the copper exterior, but it is a cheaper alternative to our other picks. 

While traditional copper cookware contains a copper exterior and tin lining, this set has a copper exterior, aluminum core, and stainless steel interior. This will provide a bit more durability, though may heat less evenly than other traditional copper pans. The heating qualities are likely to be much better than high-end, multi-ply sets without copper.

$799.95 FROM WILLIAMS SONOMA
Best high-end copper cookware set

Mauviel Copper Cookware Set M'200, best high-end copper cookware 2021

Williams Sonoma

The Mauviel M’200 Cl set is made of heavy gauge copper bonded to nonreactive stainless steel, enhancing its durability and heating efficiency.

Pros: Thick copper exterior

Cons: Heavy and difficult to move around the kitchen

This set has a range of pieces so every meal can be made in a copper pan. The 2 mm gauge copper exterior gives the chef the full experience and benefits of copper, though it makes the pieces heavier than others in this guide. 

Lined with stainless steel, this cookware can be used with acidic foods that otherwise damage tin-lined copper pans. The lids are also made of copper, but have cast iron handles, just as the pans do.

$1999.95 FROM WILLIAMS SONOMA
Best single copper pan

best copper skillet 2021 ruffoni, best copper cookware

Williams Sonoma

The Ruffoni Historia Copper Frying Pan brings traditional copper cookware and its optimal heating performance to the home kitchen.

Pros: Thick copper exterior, ornate and beautiful, traditional construction with tin lining

Cons: Tin lining can discolor from acidic foods

Copper isn’t for everyone; if you’re unsure about taking the leap on a full copper set, we recommend starting out with a single piece. According to the CMA, copper is great at frying and sauteing, so we recommend investing in a skillet as your first piece of copper cookware. The Ruffoni Historia pan’s body is solid, hammered copper and lined with a traditional tin interior. This artisanal skillet gives you an authentic experience.

The tin lining prevents foods from reacting with copper, but can itself be scratched and discolored. Avoid cooking acidic foods and using metal utensils to keep the tin in new condition. All tin interiors eventually need to be relined, but this quality extends the life of the cookware, as opposed to nonstick cookware that is thrown away when the coating wears off.

$219.95 FROM WILLIAMS SONOMA
Our copper cookware research methodology

We identified the best copper cookware sets based on extensive research and expert interviews with Fran Groesbeck, managing director at the Cookware Manufacturer Association, and Mac Kohler of Brooklyn Copper Cookware, as well as our own knowledge of cookware. We considered the average price point of copper sets, as well as the differences between different types of copper cookware. We plan on testing these sets in the future and updating this guide accordingly.

Copper cookware FAQs

best copper skillet 2021 ruffoni

Williams Sonoma

Why are all copper pans lined?

All of the sets in this guide are lined with an inert metal, like stainless steel or, traditionally, tin. Not only can pure copper impart a taste to cooked foods, it can also react when it comes in contact with acids, and the byproducts of this reaction can be toxic, said Kohler.

What are the differences between copper clad, copper core, and copper base cookware?

True copper cookware is constructed mainly of copper, featuring a medium to heavy gauge copper exterior with an inert metal lining. This cookware will be listed as just copper, without any of the terms we define below, such as core or base. 

Copper clad means a thin layer of copper foil is wrapped around the body of the cookware. While it looks pretty, there is no copper in the actual construction, so we don’t recommend this cookware if you’re looking for the heating qualities of copper.

In copper core or base cookware, a layer of copper is surrounded by additional stainless steel or aluminum layers for structure and durability. 

Copper clad, core, and base pans are intended to provide the aesthetics of copper without driving up the price and requiring a lot of care. However, there are sacrifices in performance. “In the case of both copper-clad and copper-base cookware, the thin copper foil is for all practical purposes aesthetic,” said Kohler. “The speed of energy transfer is still determined by the much slower stainless steel layers.”

Can copper cookware be used on induction stove tops?

This depends on the set and will be listed in the manufacturer’s description of the product.

Can copper cookware go in the oven?

The answer is mostly yes, but you should consult the manufacturer’s instructions to confirm the upper temperature limit. Additionally, you should never heat up an empty copper pan because physical differences between the materials of the pan and the lining can cause stress and damage to the metal, according to Kohler.

Tips for maintaining copper cookware

The type of copper construction dictates the maintenance needed. For instance, cleaning copper core or base cookware depends on the exterior material.

According to the CMA, there are two common methods to keep exterior copper shiny: clean with a paste-like mixture of flour, salt, lemon juice, and ammonia or a mixture of vinegar and flour. Never use steel wool. Wash in sudsy water and rise before drying with a soft cloth. Kohler recommends ketchup and sea salt for a quick shine. 

However, polishing copper is largely for aesthetic purposes. The patina that develops over time does not negatively affect performance. “Copper is one of the rare kinds of cookware that can be maintained, as opposed to disposed of when it gets worn out,” said Kohler.

Check out our other cookware guides

Best Overall Hard Anodized Cookware Set_GreenPan_Amazon

Amazon

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Prices of metals like copper and iron ore are collapsing on growth worries and Chinese steel curbs after soaring on hopes of a swift economic recovery

Copper
An employee produces copper wires at Nanjing Gree Electric Enterprise Co in China.

Photo by Fang Dongxu/VCG via Getty Images

  • Copper and iron ore prices have been knocked down sharply in August after steadily running higher since early 2020.
  • Iron ore prices have lost nearly 30% on demand concerns and China’s orders to curb steel production.
  • “Dr. Copper” as a barometer of economic health is being hurt while COVID cases ramp up.
  • See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Copper and iron ore prices have been slammed this month by demand worries as the coronavirus crisis wears on, while iron ore faces industry-specific pressure as China demands curbs on steel production, prompting questions about whether prices for the industrial metals can return to highs for the year.

Benchmark iron ore prices with 62% iron content in August have tumbled roughly 26% to trade above $156 per metric ton, driving to levels not seen since February. Copper has dropped more than 8% to fetch about $4.111 per pound, the lowest in about four months.

The downward slope comes after prices for the metals had been climbing since March 2020 when they dropped alongside a crash in US stocks as the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to push economies worldwide into recession.

“If you think about from the March 2020 S&P 500 market low to the first half of this year, you saw copper just continue to go higher and that argument of strong metals like copper and strong markets made sense because higher copper prices imply economic growth and economic activity and a need for copper,” David Keller, chief market strategist at Stockcharts.com, told Insider.

Iron ore like copper is an important industrial metal as it is a key raw material used to make steel. Production volume of about 2 billion tonnes and export volume of around 1.5 billion tonnes makes iron ore the third-largest commodity in terms of production volume after crude oil and coal, and the second-most traded commodity after crude oil, according to the World Steel Association.

The rollout of COVID-19 vaccinations along with worldwide fiscal and monetary policy stimulus efforts have helped support the upswing in prices for the metals. But investors appear to be growing more cautious about the outlook for continued economic recovery as coronavirus cases increase on the back of the highly transmissible Delta variant.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Reserve appears on the path this year toward reducing the emergency asset purchases it put in place to help the economy weather the COVID crisis, a worrisome prospect for some investors who see the central bank’s asset purchases as fostering economic recovery and stoking demand for industrial metals like copper as building projects restart or get underway. Supply constraints had also helped pull up copper prices this year.

For iron ore, Bank of America this week said prices have peaked in part as supply has been catching up with demand. It noted that steel production in China had posted a run of seasonal highs since June 2020 largely because of a rebound after the start of the COVID pandemic.

“That said, output growth has been slowing,” driven by a confluence of factors, said BofA commodity strategists led by Michael Widmer. “Looking at demand first, growth has been grinding to a halt, as activity has become patchier, with construction and automotives particular headwinds.”

As well, the Chinese government has ordered steel mills to limit production in part to cut down on carbon emissions. It also changed tax incentives in May and July in an effort to better control steel production.

“This matters [as it] removes the incentive to run steel mills for exports,” said the strategists.

Moves that could revive iron ore prices include renewed stimulus measures in China and steel restocking ahead of the winter Olympics, which could prompt further mill closures to contain emissions, said BofA.

Keller at Stockcharts.com said the price of copper this week tested the 200-day moving average of $4 per pound, the first such test since June 2020.

“That whole idea of the infrastructure trade – industrials and machinery names — is really coming off here. While I see that as a long-term play, certainly in the short term weakness in copper is agreeing that it’s not an ideal time to make that bet,” Keller said.

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China will release more metals stockpiles in an effort to control soaring commodities prices

Copper
An employee produces copper wires at Nanjing Gree Electric Enterprise Co. in China.

Fang Dongxu/VCG via Getty Images

  • China is pumping copper, aluminum, and zinc into commodity markets to tamp down soaring prices.
  • The move, first reported by Bloomberg, comes as commodity prices have marched steadily upward for months.
  • But Wednesday’s commodity reserves dump is just a fraction of the country’s estimated reserves.
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China is pumping copper, aluminum, and zinc into commodity markets to tamp down soaring materials costs, the country’s strategic reserves agency announced on Wednesday.

The move, which was first reported by Bloomberg, comes as commodity prices have marched steadily upward for months, with the S&P GSCI commodity index rising more than 30% year-to-date.

Last month, the strategic reserves agency pledged to keep commodity prices down, to prevent supply cost crunches that have begun to creep in. June saw China’s producer price index, a measure of inflation faced by suppliers, rise 9%, the highest rate in over a decade.

China appears to still be keeping some of its powder dry, however. Wednesday’s commodity reserves dump – consisting of around 100,000 tons of copper, aluminum, and zinc – is just a fraction of the country’s estimated reserves. Prior to this sale, China held two million tons of copper, 800,000 tons of aluminum, and 350,000 tons of zinc in reserve, according to a Citibank estimate reported by CNBC.

Copper futures were up about 2% overnight.

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Lumber prices have further to slide as speculation dies down and supply catches up, a top commodity strategist says

Lumberjack lumber tree France forest
Lumber prices have fallen sharply in recent days.

Martin Bureau/Getty Images

  • The dramatic slide in lumber and copper prices has further to go, Saxo Bank’s chief commodity strategist said.
  • Ole Hansen said lumber supply was quickly catching up with demand, and speculators were leaving the market.
  • He also said demand for copper as an inflation hedge is falling as investors ignore price rises.
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The dramatic slide in lumber prices has further to go, as speculators pull out of the market and supply catches up with demand, Saxo Bank’s chief commodity strategist has said.

Lumber prices have fallen more than 42% since May’s record high of over $1,700 per thousand board feet, although they remain more than 150% higher for the year.

Ole Hansen, head of commodities at the Danish bank and a leading authority in the field, said a number of factors meant prices likely have further to drop.

“Something like lumber has been very much a pandemic-driven spike,” he told Insider. He said a lack of mill capacity and “people going crazy in their backyards, redoing their houses or buying a bigger house” had caused prices to soar.

Skyrocketing prices had sucked in speculators such as hedge funds, who are now pulling out of the market as prices dip, Hansen said.

“Some of that activity is bound to slow [and] supply is starting to meet the demand,” he said.

Hansen said the curve for lumber futures contracts is sloping downwards, showing that “the market is looking for quite some weakness as we head into the autumn and winter months.”

Hansen also said copper could drop another 10% from its current level over the summer, before rebounding later in the year. Copper is down roughly 10% from May’s high of around $10,750 per ton.

One reason for this is that investors think the chances of a dangerous rise in inflation have died down, he said. That means they are moving away from commodities like copper, which are seen as good stores of value at times of rising prices because they’re widely used in industry and technology.

Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Wealth Management, told Insider that commodities prices can be taken as a barometer of wider forces in the economy.

He said soaring home prices had cooled down some of the “frenzied” buying in the market, weighing on lumber. And he said peoples’ spending in many other areas had cooled after an initial splurge when economies first reopened.

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US stocks slip from record highs as investors mull weak retail-sales data ahead of Fed decision

Stock Market Bubble
A trader blows bubble gum during the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on August 1, 2019, in New York City.

Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images

US stocks slipped from record highs Tuesday as investors mulled the disappointing retail sales ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee’s two-day meeting.

Spending at US retailers for the month of May slumped for the first time since February as more economic restrictions were reversed and Americans settled into a new sense of normal.

US retail sales fell 1.3% in May, the Census Bureau. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg held a median estimate for a 0.7% decline. The decline places monthly sales at $620 billion and just below the record-high seen in April.

Meanwhile, investors continue to weigh inflationary pressures ahead of the FOMC decision due Wednesday. Most economists are anticipating that the central bank will leave its policy mostly unchanged. Investors will be focusing on tapering discussions, the latest economic projections, and inflation.

“Despite the ‘transitory’ message regarding inflation, some on the Committee must be twitching a little uncomfortably,” said Marcus Dewsnap, head of fixed income strategy at IGM, which is part of Informa Financial Intelligence.

Hard data so far hasn’t quite suggested the sort of second-quarter that will force economic growth to hit the Fed’s 2021 projection, Dewsnap added.

The 10-year Treasury yield hovered near 1.5% for most of the day.

In March, Fed officials saw consumer prices rising 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2021 from a year earlier. That pace, they said, would be consistent with their goal of 2% average annual inflation over the long run.

Here’s where US indexes stood at the 4:00 p.m. ET close on Tuesday.

Online gaming company DraftKings plunged as much as 12% on allegations by a short seller of illegal activity. A report from Hindenburg Research, a short seller, claimed DraftKings is hiding “black market operations.”

Meanwhile, short-sellers betting against meme stock AMC Entertainment lost $512 million on Monday when the movie theater chain rallied 15%, according to Reuters, citing data from analytics firm Ortex.

Solid Power, an electric-vehicle battery producer, announced it’s going public by merging with blank-check firm Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation III in a deal valued at $1.2 billion.

In cryptocurrencies, bitcoin finally hit the $40,000-level on Monday after trending below that level to date in June.

Still, a new survey found that hedge fund bosses are planning to ramp up their holdings of cryptocurrencies, predicting that an average of 7.2% of their assets under management will be held in digital tokens by 2026.

Crude oil traded at the highest level since 2018. West Texas Intermediate crude was up 1.96% to $72.27 per barrel. Brent crude, oil’s international benchmark, gained 1.78% to $74.16 per barrel.

Gold slid 0.45% to $1,858.92 per ounce.

Copper also tumbled to a seven-week low amid concerns that China will gradually release its stockpiles in the coming months.

Lumber joined the downturn, sliding for the 10th straight day before mounting a recovery as the pandemic-driven boom in the commodity continues to show signs of weakness.

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Jeremy Grantham said US stocks are heroically overpriced, copper should shoot higher, and that he had an ‘overprivileged’ lockdown in a recent interview. Here are the 14 best quotes.

GettyImages 1193640564
Jeremy Grantham cofounded the asset management firm GMO.

Boston Globe/Getty Images

Legendary investor Jeremy Grantham said US stocks are hugely overpriced, predicted copper prices should shoot higher in the coming years, and that he had an “overprivileged” lockdown in an interview at the Morningstar Investment Conference Australia this week.

The cofounder of asset management firm GMO also ripped into the major oil companies, saying they’re too cynical to engage with. And the 82-year-old said the SPAC boom and the Nasdaq had probably peaked.

Here are the 14 best quotes from the interview.

On the investing landscape

1. “The developed world is merely overpriced, no big deal on its own, but the US is heroically overpriced, and emerging markets is actually fairly cheap… I have complete confidence that if you bought the intersection, cheap emerging market stocks, that you would get a perfectly handsome 10- or 20-year return. And I am pretty darn confident that you will not get a handsome ten-year return from say the S&P 500 or Nasdaq.”

2. “[The] Nasdaq has, by the way, peaked quite a long time ago, two months ago…. This time, my guess is the super SPACs peaked in January, the Nasdaq peaked in February. And maybe in a few months, the termites will get to the rest of the market.”

3. “The super crazies are really anything to do with electrification. EVs, for sure, Tesla is the king of that group, [and] they’re down 30%. The SPAC index is down 30%, the last 10 SPACs having announced a deal are now [trading at] less than the $10 that they do these deals at.”

4. “There is no way copper will not rise hugely from here because of the electrification of everything. And that goes for cobalt, that goes for lithium. And all of the metals except iron and aluminum are really scarce… You have to be reconciled in the long run for a different world of commodity prices.”

On dangers for markets

5. “The higher an asset price is, the lower the return. So having high-priced assets is great for retirees, old folks like me selling off my assets. But for everybody else, it means you compound your wealth more slowly… So I welcome lower asset prices, which I’m confident will come.”

6. “It won’t take bad news. It won’t take a thoroughly bad economy to start bringing this market down. It will take a perfectly good economy and perfectly optimistic outlook, but a little less than it used to be a week ago, a month ago.” – Grantham also spoke of “pessimism termites” that would start to eat away at investor confidence.

7. “You look around and you find that real estate is suddenly pretty bubbly in almost every interesting market in the world… You can’t keep an asset class like housing, where the house doesn’t change, and you’re just marking it up in real terms year after year. Eventually, there’ll be a day of reckoning.”

8. “Don’t pull a Japan. Japan had the biggest bubble in history in land and real estate, bigger than the South Sea Bubble in my opinion. It also had the biggest equity bubble of any advanced country. [Now] 32 years later their land is not back to where it was in 1989 and their stock market is not back in nominal dollars to where it was in 1989. And that’s a perfect example, as the higher you go, the longer and greater the fall.”

On lockdown

9. “We had a totally overprivileged existence. We’re down in beautiful countryside with 50 acres of our own of woodland… And I did quite a lot more research than normal because I wasn’t wasting my time on airplanes. So my carbon footprint was magnificent, and I was reduced to worrying about rather small things like amortizing my tie supply. If I could wear three at a time, I would.”

On the oil companies

10. “The oil industry ran a deliberate campaign of obfuscation, political propaganda, to deliberately mislead the world… That should be criminal. It certainly has had a very damaging effect… It’s cost the world perhaps as much as 10 years of progress on climate change action and government support and sensible regulation.”

11. “I think engagement for the routine concerns [with companies over climate change] is the way to go… But with oil companies, I think they’re simply too cynical and too clever for engagement to count.”

On value investing and venture capital

12. “[Value investing] has had a brutal 11 years. It was the worst 10 years in history for value versus growth. And then last year was by far the worst single year. So you had the worst decade followed by the worst single year… We’ve had a lot of problems over the last 11 years.”

13. “American capitalism seems to me past its prime, a little fat and happy, not aggressive enough. There’s only half the number of people working for firms [that are] one and two years old than there were in 1975. So we’re losing some of our dynamism.”

14. “But there is one thing where the US is still exceptional and that is venture capital. And venture capital is really attracting the best people these days. They don’t go to Goldman Sachs to write algorithms. They go into venture capital or to start a new firm, and they should.”

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Bitcoin is more like risky digital copper than gold as an inflation hedge, Goldman Sachs’ top commodities analyst says

A pile of bitcoin cryptocurrencies is seen.

Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

  • Bitcoin is closer to “digital copper” than “digital gold”, according to Goldman’s top commodities analyst.
  • That’s because bitcoin and copper act as “risk-on” inflationary hedges, while gold is “risk-off,” he said.
  • Commodities remain the best inflation hedge because they rely on demand, the bank’s research team said.
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Investors should view digital currencies as a substitute to copper, rather than gold, Jeff Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC on Tuesday.

“You look at the correlation between bitcoin and copper, or a measure of risk appetite and bitcoin, and we’ve got 10 years of trading history on bitcoin – it is definitely a risk-on asset,” Currie told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

He said both bitcoin and copper work as “risk-on” inflationary hedges, or situations where investors have higher risk appetite. Gold is a more “risk-off” asset, where investors seek shelter when stocks are selling off.

Copper prices topped $10,000 a ton for the first time in a decade last month, as economic reopening triggered a rally in the metal. Demand has been surging as it’s seen as a critical component to the transition to a green-energy economy. Although prices suffered a sharp decline towards the end of May, they again rebounded.

Currie’s comments came after a wild few weeks for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin was last trading 2% higher around $37,190 on Wednesday, and is up about 28% so far this year. The digital token lost more than 25% of its value over the last three months amid a broad crypto sell-off after Tesla suspended bitcoin payments and China announced digital tokens can’t be used for business.

Read More: Financial researcher Nik Bhatia explains why asset managers with a growth focus could be violating their fiduciary duty if they don’t consider bitcoin – and compares the crypto to Amazon’s stock 20 years ago

Currie, who is one of the most widely followed commodity experts, pointed out bitcoin and copper are more similar when it comes to acting as an inflationary hedging – a strategy that involves investing in assets that outperform the market when central bank policy causes prices to rise.

“There is good inflation and there is bad inflation. Good inflation is when demand pulls it, and that is what bitcoin hedges, that is what copper hedges, that is what oil hedges,” Currie told CNBC.

“Gold hedges bad inflation, where supply is being curtailed, which is focused on the shortages on chips, commodities and other types of input raw materials. And you would want to use gold as that hedge,” he said.

In a research note published Monday, Currie and his team said commodities remain the best inflation hedge because they rely on demand, not growth rates. “Commodities are spot assets that do not depend on forward growth rates but on the level of demand relative to the level of supply today,” the strategists wrote.

“As a result, they hedge short-term unanticipated inflation, created when the level of aggregate demand is exceeding supply in the late stages of the business cycle.”

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Goldman Sachs breaks down how a worldwide copper-mining shortage could drive parabolic gains in the metal’s price over the next 10 years

chile copper mine
Workers monitor a process inside a plant at the copper smelter of Codelco Ventanas in Ventanas city, Chile, February 15, 2012.

REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido

  • Andrew Snowdon of Goldman Sachs broke down how a supply shortage in copper mining projects will propel the metal’s price higher.
  • The firm recently said the metal is “the new oil,” and could reach $15,000 by 2025.
  • Snowdon said mining projects are hesitant to invest in growth, and the copper price will need to soar even higher to change that.
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Goldman Sachs recently published a note declaring copper “the new oil,” and forecasting it could reach $15,000 by 2025 as the world transitions to clean energy.

The firm said copper is the most critical raw material in the world’s path towards net zero emissions because it’s used in everything from electric vehicles to wind turbines and solar power.

In a recent Goldman Sachs podcast episode, Nick Snowdon, one of the researchers, broke down why the soft metal is facing a record supply shortage that will propel the price higher.

“The long-term supply gap in the markets, so when you look forward ten years, that gap currently stands at just over 8 million tons, so nearly 40 percent of the size of the market in terms of the long-term shortfall,” said Nick Snowdon. “That’s larger than anything we’ve seen in the history of the copper market.”

The market will need an enormous number of copper mine projects approved to meet demand, he said. He stressed that the shortage of supply isn’t in copper itself, but in mining projects.

“There is enough copper out there. This isn’t a story of the depletion of copper ore. But there is a very limited list, currently, of copper projects,” Snowden said.

Snowdon said the supply side is completely underprepared for the demand surge in copper that is set to come as countries move towards renewable energy initiatives. Over the last 12-18 months, he said hasn’t seen a single new major copper project being approved.

“Essentially we’re sleepwalking to huge deficits and scarcity. And prices will have to rise even higher than is currently our base case,” Snowdon said.

One reason for the mining-supply shortage is because the mining sector has been in a very conservative setting in terms of its balance sheet activity, said Snowdon. The sector hasn’t invested in early stage project development and so now, the quality of projects compared to 10 years ago is “very poor,” the researcher said.

Even now, record price levels haven’t caused a shift in supply investment like one might expect, he added.

That’s because in the early 2010’s, the mining sector invested heavily in projects, only for the price in copper to collapse shortly after, punishing any producer who invested heavily in new projects.

“That memory lingers really amongst the current generation of producer management,” Snowdon said.

He also explained that ESG initiatives slow down the process of getting a mining permit approved. Additionally, the coronavirus created operational challenges in copper mining.

Snowdon said right now, the quality of mining projects is lower and the costs are higher, and the price of copper will need to move up even further before there’s an incentive to invest in more projects.

“It’s not an easy proposition of saying, “Okay, let’s just invest in growth,” because the economics are not as attractive as they were if you go back to the mid/late 2000s,” said Snowdon.

He continued: “So, I think all of those are combining to generate this restraint. And really, the only thing that can break that has to come from price dynamics and an incredibly high price. And we don’t think the current price is, yet, at the level to generate that shift.”

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Oil will surge 19% and copper will see double-digit returns over the next 6 months as economic reopening gives commodities a boost, Goldman says

GettyImages 1231249968 (1)
In this Photo illustration, the Goldman Sachs logo seen displayed on a smartphone.

Photo Illustration by Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Goldman Sachs expects commodities prices to stage double-digit rallies over the next six months as coronavirus restrictions ease across the world, aided by lower interest rates and a weaker dollar.

The bank in a note Wednesday said it predicts the price of Brent crude, oil’s international benchmark, to rise 19% to $80 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude to jump 20% to $77 a barrel.

“We expect the biggest jump in oil demand ever – a 5.2 [million barrels per day] rise over the next six months, 50% larger than the next largest increase over that time frame since 2000 and almost twice as large as the biggest 6 million supply rise since 2000,” analysts led by Jeffrey Currie said.

The analysts also upgraded their 12-month price target for copper to $11,000 per tonne, a jump of 11% from current levels. If the green capital expenditure is at the center of the commodity supercycle, they said copper is at the center of this trend. Copper is a critical raw material for green infrastructure and has an under-invested supply side, they said.

“The only way this record-sized and fast approaching supply crunch can be solved is via a surge in price to new record highs,” the analysts said. “We essentially see the copper market sleepwalking to a classic case of ‘Revenge of the old economy,’ just as oil did during the 2000s commodity boom.”

As for gold, the analysts see the price of the yellow metal rising 12% to $2,000 an ounce over the next six months, highlighting its “real use” compared to bitcoin.

“While bitcoin benefits from greater liquidity, it suffers from lack of real use and weak [environmental, social, governance] scoring due to its high energy consumption which makes it vulnerable to losing store of value demand to another better designed cryptocurrency,” the analysts said.

Edmund Moy, former Director of the US Mint and now chief market strategist at gold seller Valaurum, agreed.

“Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are many things but I do not consider them a store of value yet because they do not have a long history of maintaining its value, the way gold has,” he told Insider. “I could change my mind…Ask me again in two thousand years.”

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Copper is ‘the new oil’ and could reach $15,000 by 2025 as the world transitions to clean energy, Goldman Sachs says

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A worker inspects batches of processed copper at Mutanda Mining Sarl, Democratic Republic of the Congo

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Copper will be crucial in achieving decarbonization and replacing oil with renewable energy sources, and right now, the market is facing a supply crunch that could boost the price by more than 60% in four years, Goldman Sachs said in a report on Tuesday.

Increased demand and likely low supply are set to drive up the price from the current levels of around $9,000 per ton to $15,000 per ton by 2025, the bank said.

As a cost-effective metal, copper is majorly important in the process of creating, storing and distributing clean energy from the wind, sun and geothermal sources as it has the physical attributes needed to do so, Goldman’s team of analysts, led by Jeff Currie, said in a report titled “Copper is the new oil”.

“Discussions of peak oil demand overlook the fact that without a surge in the use of copper and other key metals, the substitution of renewables for oil will not happen,’ the report said.

Copper will be needed to create the new infrastructure systems required for clean energy to replace oil and gas, however there has not been enough of a focus on this so far according to the report.

Demand will therefore significantly increase, by up to 900% to 8.7 million tons by 2030, if green technologies are adopted en masse, the bank estimates. Should this process be slower, demand will still surge to 5.4 million tons, or by almost 600%.

Copper is a key part of sustainable technologies, including electric vehicle batteries and deriving clean energy. As the deadline of the Paris Agreement comes closer, political and economic pushes towards renewable energy and green technology are becoming stronger.

Just two weeks ago, US President Biden announced an infrastructure package worth $2 trillion, which specifically encourages new sustainable technologies and infrastructure projects.

In its current state however, the copper market is not prepared for the increased demand, Goldman Sachs argue. The copper price has risen by about 80% in the last 12 months, but there hasn’t been a matching rise in output.

“The market is already tight as pandemic stimulus (particularly in China) have supported a resurgence in demand, set against stagnant supply conditions,” Goldman said.

The benchmark three-month copper futures price on the London Metal Exchange was last up 1.4% at around $9,022 a ton, while NYMEX copper futures were up 1.5% at $4.09 a pound.

As the expansion of mines and creation of new copper production fields takes years, this is likely to lead to shortages of the metal. To prevent a depletion of copper supply within two years, prices must rise now to encourage investment and an expansion in output, Goldman said.

At present, Goldman Sachs “now estimate a long-term supply gap of 8.2 million tons by 2030, twice the size of the gap that triggered the bull market in copper in the early 2000s”.

Copper production declined in 2020 due to government restrictions and lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. The world’s largest copper producers, Chile and Peru, were hit especially hard by the pandemic, which could impact supply until 2023, according to commodity analysts S&P Global. Last week, prices spiked following Chilean border closures related to the pandemic.

Global copper production is however predicted to increase by 5.6% in 2021 after declining by 2.6% in 2020, according to a GlobalData report published in February.

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