Copper fell on Thursday, 5 November 2026, to about US$6.2 a pound, its lowest level since early July, two days after Democrats won control of both chambers of the US Congress. Peru, one of the world’s three largest copper producers, feels the move directly because its mines and their New York-listed owners sit at the centre of the trade.
A sell-off in American tech shares after the US midterm elections coincided with copper’s slide, and Peru, a top producer, watches closely.
The Lima Stock Exchange building in Lima, Peru, where mining shares trade. Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsWhat Happened This Week
Democrats won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the midterm elections of Tuesday, 3 November 2026. On Thursday, 5 November, US shares fell hard: the S&P 500, the benchmark index of 500 large US companies, lost about 4.4%.
Copper fell too, falling as low as about US$6.18 a pound on Thursday. That is within about 10% of its early-September record.
Market commentary linked the copper drop to worries, reported but not independently confirmed, that a Democratic Congress could slow the American build-out of AI data centres, which use large amounts of copper for power and cabling. Nothing in the election result itself restricts data centres, so the fear rests on what Democrats might pass, not on a law.
Why Peru Is Exposed
Peru ranks among the world’s three largest copper producers, according to the US Geological Survey, a federal science agency. A lower price cuts export earnings and mining tax revenue, which is why Lima watches the metal so closely.
Southern Copper, a miner listed in New York with large operations in Peru, fell 6.5% to US$165.38 on Thursday and closed Friday at US$167.27. Freeport-McMoRan, a major US copper miner, fell 7.5% to US$57.90 on Thursday.
Related reading: Peru’s terms of trade (the price of its exports against imports), Southern Copper’s Peruvian investment plans and Chile’s copper output. Each shows a different part of the copper picture.
What Prediction Markets Say
A separate question is whether Washington taxes copper imports. Polymarket, a crypto-based prediction market, shows 20.5% odds that copper cable is hit with Section 232 tariffs (national-security import duties) by 31 December 2026, and 52.5% by 31 December 2027, on US$17,223 traded as of 1:42 p.m. ET on 9 November.
Kalshi, a prediction market regulated in the US by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), shows 14% for such restrictions on insulated copper cable before 1 January 2027 and 34% before 1 January 2028, on 2,797 contracts traded. These markets price tariffs, not the copper price itself, and they are bets, not polls.
Why we show this: prediction markets turn real-money bets into a live probability that moves within minutes of the news, which is why investors, campaigns and newsrooms in the United States now follow them closely. We show them next to polls and official results, never instead of them.
What It Means for You
For US investors, copper miners and copper funds now trade as part of the AI-spending story as much as the metal cycle. A reversal in expectations about data centres can move them within a day.
For Peru, a lower price trims export income and tax receipts, though the level near US$6.2 is still within about 10% of the record. The size of the hit depends on how long the price stays down.
What Is Not Known
How long the data-centre fear lasts, and whether Democrats will pass rules that slow the build-out, are both open. Copper was reported back above US$6.30 on Monday, 9 November, an intraday level rather than a close, so the closing figures here run to Friday, 6 November.
Prices quoted differ slightly between trading venues and times of day. The copper figures here are therefore rounded and meant as a guide.
More: Peru news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did copper fall to a four-month low?
Copper fell to about US$6.2 a pound on 5 November 2026 as US tech shares sold off after Democrats won both chambers of Congress. One reported explanation, not independently confirmed, is fear that slower AI data-centre spending would reduce demand for the metal.
How does falling copper affect Peru?
Peru is among the world’s three largest copper producers, so a lower price reduces export earnings and mining tax revenue. Listed miners with Peruvian mines, such as Southern Copper, fell sharply on 5 November.
Is copper still near its record?
The price of about US$6.2 a pound on 5 November is within about 10% of the record set in early September 2026. The metal fell back from that peak in the days after.
Sources: CME Group (COMEX copper futures), 5 and 6 November 2026; NYSE and Nasdaq closing prices, 5 and 6 November 2026; US Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Summaries (copper); results of the US elections of 3 November 2026; Polymarket and Kalshi market data, 9 November 2026.