The BHP share price slumped yesterday as the Australian mining giant reacted to China’s latest attempt to cool hot commodity prices.
BHP Group PLC (London listing) closed at 2,059.5p, down 69.5p (-3.26%).
BHP Billiton is one of the world’s largest natural resource companies. Its vast mining assets cover industrial metals, including copper, nickel, Aluminium, Iron, and steel. Additionally, BHP has interests in Silver and energy products.
As a consequence, the BHP share price is highly reactive to fluctuations in commodity markets. And that’s been a positive for the share price thing in the last year.
Commodity prices have roared higher over the last 15 months on increasing demand as the world economy transitions from last year’s Covid-19 slump.
Not only did the pandemic crimp the global supply of raw materials, the monetary stimulus that followed pushed demand far beyond the capacity of struggling producers.
This created a perfect storm for commodity prices, lifting metals to multi-year and, in Copper’s case, all-time highs.
As a result, the BHP share price set its own record of 2,418.5p in May this year.
As I reported earlier this week, the Chinese government has announced plans to halt runaway metals prices. China is the world’s largest consumer of raw materials, and rising prices have threatened the countries economic revival.
After previous restrictions garnered limited results, they sanctioned the release of the countries sizeable State metal reserves.
This caused widespread liquidation across the metals market, and Copper crashed 15%, Nickel slipped 7%, and Aluminium suffered a 6% loss.
Moreover, this week’s FOMC meeting has cast a hawkish shadow across risk assets. This could provide additional downside pressure on commodities and negatively impacting the BHP share price.
The weekly chart highlights several noteworthy factors. First of which is a double-top formation at the May high. This should be considered a crucial area of price resistance.
A long-term trend line from the 2020 pandemic low underpins the rally and is seen at 1,992p. Moreover, this aligns with two previous lows in January and March.
On that basis, it is a major support level. If the current correction carries the share price below this threshold, a steeper decline to the August 2020 high at 1,855p could follow.
This also represents the 0.382 Fibonacci retracements of the post-pandemic rally.
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