didn't they buy an almost ungodly amount of physical copper(and a few other things) over the last few years afraid the price was going to go up?A pittance.
Last time I looked at the copper market in detail, the major buyers of copper went like this:
- electrical wire
- plumbing & tubing
- motor windings
Then we move down to brass and other alloys - which have historically been about 20% of copper consumption in the US in total, and out of all that alloy consumption, you’ll find copper consumption in ammo, which will be pretty small by comparison.
The industrial market segment is starting into a for-real slowdown, and copper is showing us this in the prices. The real elephant in the room is China.
didn't they buy an almost ungodly amount of physical copper(and a few other things) over the last few years afraid the price was going to go up?