Copper rout worsens as recession fears hammer commodities markets

A rout in the copper market deepened on Friday, with the price of the world’s most important industrial metal sliding below $7,000 a tonne for the first time since November 2020 as recession fears gripped markets.

The benchmark copper contract on the London Metal Exchange slipped 1.6 per cent lower to $6,987, as slowdown concerns intensified after weak economic data from China. The price later recovered to trade at $7,165, up 1 per…