As copper surged to record highs last month, several senior Chinese traders started trying to contact western hedge fund managers whose names they’d only read in the press. For years, the veteran traders’ privileged insight into their own economy had given them an edge in the copper market, where China accounts for more than half of global demand.
But now they were bewildered. Everything in China pointed to a market that should be slumping, and yet prices were soaring on a wave of speculative money. What were they missing?