Copper at risk of sliding

London
Copper prices are at risk of tumbling below $4,000 a tonne after demand for the metal in top consumer China collapsed this year, according to an analyst from Goldman Sachs, a bank known for its bearish views.
Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange has slid nearly a fifth this year, hitting a six-year low of $4,855 a tonne in August.
Opinions on the outlook for copper are wildly different, with Goldman and other bears facing off against relative bulls such as commodity group Glencore and bank Citi .
The chief executive of embattled Glencore, Ivan Glasenberg, said last week that steep output cuts by copper miners will help lift prices in the next 18 months.
Goldman's base case is that copper ends this year at $4,800 and next year at $4,500, but Max Layton, head of European commodities research, told a conference on Thursday prices could overshoot lower. He said copper could be hit by weaker demand, climbing supply and heavy cost deflation.
"If any one of these three things happens in the next 12 months then copper's at $4,500," he told Metal Bulletin's Copper Concentrate conference in London
"But if all three of these things happen at the same time, then that's why we talk about the risks being skewed to the downside, then we think copper's going to $4,000 or below."