Copper price: why it moves and what that means for your sale

No metal in our program moves as often as copper. Anyone who has a roll of cable in the basement and wonders if he should sell this week or next month will ask a legitimate question – only one to which no one answers seriously with a date.

What we can do instead: say what the copper price depends on, why our purchase price is lower, and what has actually moved us in the last place. This report is not a forecast. She's an account.

What the price of copper depends on

Copper is listed on the stock exchange, and this listing is the starting point for each purchase price in Germany. It's moving from two directions.

From the demand side: copper is the metal of electrification. Power grids, substations, charging stations, electric motors, data centers – all of them need ladders, and conductors in practice are called copper. This demand is not cyclical but structural; it does not disappear when industry has a weak month.

From the supply side: World production depends on a manageable number of large mines. If one fails, it will be missing immediately and for months.

September 2025 showed how this works immediately. After a fatal accident in the Indonesian Grasberg mine, Freeport-McMoRan stopped production; the return to normal operation was considered a question of quarters, with possible delays until 2027. The copper futures then jumped by more than three percent to $4.74 per pound in one day, while the operator's share itself fell by over ten percent and competitors' prices rose. A single mine, a single day.

We call this example with date because it is older than this message. It explains the mechanics, not the situation of today.

Why our purchase price is below the quotation

The listing applies to cathode copper: pure, refined metal in standard quality. What we do with the scales is old copper – wire with inrun, pipes with soldering points, cables with insulation.

Between both are work steps: sort, separate, melt, refine. These costs are at the distance between quotation and purchase price. That's why the copper price you hear in the news is never the copper price per kg you get from a scrap dealer – and whoever compares both compares two different things.

The distance is also not the same everywhere. The less work a grade does, the closer it is to listing. Blanker wire hardly needs any preparation; a plug cable with thin conductor and thick coat very much.

What has moved with our copper grades

The following table calculates our own price history – each change with old price, new price and timestamp. It is not valued and not written off.

The numbers in it apply to all grades, not just copper. If you want to see only the copper grades, you will find them with a quantity scale. Copper price; the cable types by copper content are classified under Copper cable purchase.

What this means for your sale

Three things that apply regardless of the day course.

Variety pure brings more than wait. A mixed lot is billed according to the weakest grade. The distance between blank wire and mixed old copper is greater than the usual movements of the copper price within a few weeks. He who separates wins reliably; he who waits for the right day bet.

The net weight decides, not the gross weight. Insulation, iron parts, soldering tin and moisture do not pass as copper. An hour with the pliers often a lot moves up an entire grade.

The price is valid on the day of weighing. Not the one at the time of registration. If the market moves up between registration and receipt, you will get the higher price.

If you want to watch the price

If you don't want to look every day, you can be informed: Price alert reports when the purchase prices change. This does not replace market observation, but saves the look-up.

And if you have a larger quantity, a request is worth more than any table: For lots beyond the usual quantities we calculate individually. A Supply is non-binding and mentions a price that you can compare.