Speculators Built a Record Copper Long Into the US Tariff Decision. They Have Been Unwinding It for a Month.

By Kresmion Research, July 7, 2026

Copper futures speculators built a record net long by mid May and have been unwinding it for a month, the newest weekly CFTC report showing the largest cut. The new Commitments of Traders report, dated June 30 and released Monday after the July 4 holiday delayed publication, shows non-commercial traders in COMEX copper futures net long 64,788 contracts, or 25.47 percent of open interest. That is down from a peak of 29.42 percent of open interest on May 19, the highest reading in the 61 weekly reports Kresmion tracks, and the position has now shed 14,045 contracts, about 18 percent of the peak net long, over the past four reports.

The detail that matters is who moved. In the latest week, gross long positions fell by 6,794 contracts while gross shorts were essentially unchanged, up just 38. Nobody new is betting against copper. The crowd that was betting on it is leaving.

The unwind began before the tariff deadline and continued through it. The Commerce Department owed the White House an updated assessment of the US refined copper market by June 30, the input for a decision on whether to impose a phased tariff on refined copper imports, proposed at 15 percent from January 2027 and rising to 30 percent in 2028. As of this writing, no decision has been made public. The speculative position built during the tariff run-up started unwinding before the deadline arrived and kept unwinding through it.

What the new report shows

At 25.47 percent of open interest, the position still sits at the 82.7th percentile of the past year of reports, against a one-year average of 20.19 percent. The position remains elevated by the standards of the past year even after a month of reduction. The z-score against the trailing 52 weeks has stepped down from +2.55 in mid May to +1.07 now.

The 6,832-contract net reduction in the latest week is the largest single week of the entire unwind.

The tariff trade already happened, in warehouses

The standard explanation for the position is straightforward. A tariff on refined copper imports would make copper inside the United States more expensive than copper outside it, so traders added COMEX futures length, and physical merchants shipped metal to the US ahead of any effective date. That second flow is measurable and it is enormous. COMEX exchange inventories climbed from roughly 80,000 tonnes in February 2025 to a record 652,200 tonnes by late June, while London Metal Exchange stocks fell to 352,100 tonnes, near a three-month low, according to TradingKey's June 26 market report. US imports of unwrought refined copper averaged about 140,000 tonnes a month from January 2025 through May 2026, nearly double the 2024 monthly average, per the same report.

In other words, the physical front-running of the tariff is largely complete. The US is sitting on a record pile of copper shipped in ahead of a duty that does not yet exist. Whatever the White House decides, the metal already moved. A speculative futures long is a bet on what has not happened yet, and with each month of record inventories there is less left for the tariff to do. The four-week liquidation is consistent with that arithmetic, though the report does not record why any individual trader sold.

August 2025 is the precedent the crowd remembers

This exact trade has been unwound violently once before. In July 2025, the administration announced a 50 percent tariff on semi-finished copper products effective August 1, and refined copper, the metal the futures market actually prices, was carved out, per the Federal Register proclamation. ING's analysis notes the COMEX-LME spread had reached roughly $2,937 a tonne in late July 2025 when a 50 percent tariff on all copper was briefly feared.

Kresmion's positioning data shows what that carve-out did to the speculative long: between the July 29 and August 5 reports of 2025, the net long collapsed from 37,347 contracts to 20,686, a 45 percent reduction in a single week. Traders who lived through that week know how fast a tariff position reprices when the ruling lands softer than feared. The current unwind, spread over a month rather than a single week, reads like a crowd choosing not to wait for the announcement this time.

The explanations that do not involve the tariff

Two mechanical explanations deserve a fair hearing, because CFTC data has produced artifacts before.

First, the delivery cycle. The June 30 report week coincided with first notice day for the July COMEX copper contract, when longs who do not intend to take delivery must exit. But the same calendar week in the five prior delivery cycles Kresmion tracks produced net changes ranging from a 759-contract dip to a 9,776-contract increase, including a 4,257-contract increase in the equivalent week of 2025. The current week's 6,832-contract reduction sits far outside that range, and the fade spans four reports, most of them nowhere near a delivery window. The delivery cycle does not reproduce this pattern.

Second, quarter-end position squaring. Here the record is more mixed: of the three prior quarter-ends in the data, two saw the copper net long increase, but December 2025 saw a 7,249-contract reduction comparable to the current week. A quarter-end trim by a few large funds could account for a meaningful part of the latest week specifically. It cannot account for the month of liquidation before it.

A third explanation, plain profit-taking after a large run, cannot be separated from the tariff story with this data. The report shows who left and in what size. It does not show why.

What cuts against the read

The price has not confirmed the exit. COMEX copper traded at $6.21 a pound on July 7, up 1.9 percent over the past week per Kresmion's market data, and up about 4.4 percent from the $5.9485 close TradingKey recorded on June 24. Goldman Sachs raised its year-end LME copper forecast from $12,465 to $13,735 a tonne in late June and sees prices possibly above $14,000 in the second half if tariffs take effect, per the same TradingKey report. If the tariff trade were simply dying, the price paying for it should be fading too, and it is not. Physical tightness outside the US, where LME stocks sit near three-month lows, is one candidate explanation, and it is a reminder that the futures speculators tracked here are one crowd among several in this market.

It is also worth saying that crowded positions can persist far longer than expected. In the same report, natural gas speculators posted a net long worth 65.28 percent of open interest, the highest in Kresmion's 61 weeks of records, and that position has held above 52 percent of open interest for months.

The rest of the June 30 report

The delayed report refreshed several positions this desk has covered recently. Bitcoin CME futures speculators posted their fifth consecutive net long extreme at 20.56 percent of open interest, a new 61-week high with a z-score of +2.86, though open interest fell 10.8 percent on the week, so part of that share gain is a shrinking denominator. The British pound short that led Kresmion's July 5 note eased rather than deepened: net short 102,147 contracts against 105,719 the prior week, with gross shorts trimmed by 7,195. That note named this report as the thing to watch, and the answer was a marginal cover, the first since the June 2 report. The euro tells the sharper story: speculators cut their euro net long from 30,158 contracts to 1,099, from 3.84 percent of open interest to 0.14 percent, in one week, on a genuine build of 17,385 new gross shorts rather than an expiry artifact. The last major currency the speculative community was still long against the dollar is now effectively flat, days before the Federal Reserve publishes the minutes of chair Kevin Warsh's first meeting on Wednesday. Two days later Kresmion applied the same positioning lens to oil, where speculators met the July 8 Iran shock holding one of their lightest crude positions of the year, the mirror image of copper's crowded long.

What would change the read

Two observable events settle this. The first is the White House announcement itself, whenever it comes: a hard 15 percent duty confirmed for January 2027 would test whether the remaining 97,411 gross longs rebuild, while a carve-out or delay in the spirit of August 2025 would test how much of the 25.47 percent of open interest still standing is tariff premium. The second is the next COT report, dated July 7 and due Friday July 10, which will show whether the liquidation ran a fifth week in six or paused. A third straight week of five-figure long reduction with the decision still pending would say the crowd is exiting regardless of the ruling. A rebuild says May's record was a position the market still wants.

Key takeaways

Frequently asked questions

What is the CFTC Commitments of Traders report?

A weekly report from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission showing the futures positions of different trader categories as of each Tuesday. Non-commercial positions, held by speculators such as hedge funds rather than physical hedgers, are the series used here. The June 30 report was released Monday July 6 because the July 4 holiday delayed publication.

What exactly was due on June 30?

The Commerce Department owed the President an updated assessment of the US refined copper market, required under the August 2025 Section 232 proclamation. It informs a decision on whether to impose a phased tariff on refined copper imports, proposed at 15 percent from January 2027 rising to 30 percent in 2028. The assessment deadline has passed and no decision had been made public as of July 7.

Does the speculative unwind mean copper prices will fall?

Not by itself. Speculative futures positioning is one crowd in a market that also includes physical merchants, producers and consumers. Copper's price rose about 4 percent from late June through July 7 while the speculative long was being cut, and LME inventories outside the US sit near three-month lows. Kresmion documents what positioning did, and does not make price predictions.

What happened to this trade in August 2025?

The administration imposed a 50 percent tariff on semi-finished copper products but exempted refined copper, the grade COMEX futures price. The speculative net long fell 45 percent in a single week, from 37,347 contracts on July 29, 2025 to 20,686 on August 5, 2025, the fastest unwind in Kresmion's records for this market.

Sources

• CFTC Commitments of Traders, reports dated June 30, 2026 and prior weeks, via Kresmion's positioning database (cot_reports)
• Kresmion market data: COMEX copper $6.2125/lb, July 7, 2026, 07:58 UTC
• TradingKey, "Copper price analysis: COMEX and LME inventories, tariffs," June 26, 2026: https://www.tradingkey.com/analysis/commodities/metal/261993589-copper-inp-comex-lme-tin-tradingkey
• ING Think, "What's next for US copper import tariffs?", June 12, 2026: https://think.ing.com/articles/whats-next-for-us-copper-import-tariffs/
• Federal Register, "Adjusting Imports of Copper Into the United States," August 5, 2025: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/05/2025-14893/adjusting-imports-of-copper-into-the-united-states
• Kresmion Research Notes, July 5, 2026: https://kresmion.com/daily-brief/2026-07-05