Yangshan copper premium tops $200/t, highest on record since 2017

A record-high Yangshan premium points to a physical tightness in China's copper import market that paper prices alone would not reveal, with the premium's persistence near the peak as telling as the jump itself. The signal matters most for importers paying up for metal and for anyone reading LME spreads as a proxy for Chinese demand. Whether the premium holds above this threshold or mean-reverts is the open question; the multi-month surge suggests it reflects more than a single session's squeeze.