Lithium, copper, aluminum and steel have performed just as well as gold this year
The post Lithium, copper, aluminum and steel have performed just as well as gold this year appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
The metals market in 2025 has been pretty crazy, thanks to gold’s astounding performance and silver’s equally beautiful rally. But lithium, copper, aluminum, and steel have also managed to end up running right beside them, instead of trailing behind, thanks to insanely strong demand (not fear-buying), along with AI build-out and energy transition. Jim Wiederhold, commodity index product manager at Bloomberg, said the world is “moving from a fossil-fueled economy to one powered by technologies consisting of metals. The future is metal.” Demand from AI and clean energy pushes industrial metals up Year-to-date, copper has rallied by more than 34%, steel gained 27%, while aluminum added 14%, and lithium surged by 30%. Every tech-driven industry seemed to rely on a blend of these metals, and that kept prices on a steady upward grind. Sadly though, supply problems hit the copper market harder than anything else. In May, flooding at Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut down one of the biggest copper mines on earth. A few months later, a tunnel collapse in Chile damaged another major mine, then a mudslide hit Freeport-McMoRan’s Grasberg mine in Indonesia, cutting even more supply. Lithium traders also felt pressure when the Chinese government temporarily halted operations at one of CATL’s major mining sites. Prices reacted fast. Aluminum and steel producers ran into their own issues as energy prices climbed because of the Ukraine war and AI’s heavy electricity needs. ING Bank said China was nearing its aluminum cap, which limited how much extra supply the country could push into the market. Wiederhold said, “When there’s geopolitical risk cropping up, or something with a government doing export bans to try and raise prices, this is a direct beneficiary of price appreciation.” Tariffs and supply fears add new volatility as producers respond…
Filed under: News - @ December 21, 2025 2:20 am