HG · Metals / Supply-Side Geopolitical Risk
Z85614 – HG ACLED Copper-Belt Events
Civil-protest and conflict events across Chilean, Peruvian, Congolese and Zambian copper-mining regions disrupt output; the weekly ACLED event z-score leads copper price direction with a 30-to-60-day horizon.
At a glance
IN-SEASON · ACTIVE
Current reading
-0.675
52-week z of ACLED weekly events across Chile Peru DRC and Zambia copper admin1,…
Signal state
Moderate NEG
8 trading days in current state
Phase
STRESS
Positive equals event stress, negative equals event calm
Sample
8 years
Weekly ACLED since 2018, roughly 2,167 live trading days
As of Nov 04, 2026. Updated nightly.
SIGNAL OVERVIEW
Chile, Peru, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia together produce roughly 55 percent of world copper. Mines in all four face recurring supply disruption from events the price screen does not see for weeks. Protests in Antofagasta shut Escondida. The Castillo impeachment in Peru triggered the Las Bambas blockade that lasted months. DRC regulatory shifts in Haut-Katanga constrain Glencore and CMOC. Strikes in Zambia Copperbelt interrupt refined-metal export. ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) publishes weekly event counts at admin1 resolution. This signal sums ACLED events across the copper-producing admin1 regions of the four countries, z-scores on a 52-week rolling window, and bounds through tanh. In December 2022 the composite spiked during the Peru political crisis. Today the composite reads -0.675, in Moderate NEG territory.
LIVE CHART
24 years of Chile Atacama aquifer anomaly, read as water-stress regime for copper.
The dark line in the top panel is the composite, bounded between minus one and plus one. The pale red band at the top marks the event-stress regime where protest and conflict frequency is elevated across the four countries; this historically precedes copper rallies at a 30-to-60-day horizon. The pale green band at the bottom marks event calm. The bronze line in the middle panel is the trailing 252-day rolling Spearman IC against copper forward 60-day returns. The lower panel is copper continuous back-adjusted price for context on the right axis in cents per pound.
COMPOSITE
+0.021 / tanh
STATE
Normal
PHASE
0
FWD 60d
+3.10% (baseline +2.32%)
SAMPLE N
8,764 days
TODAY’S PLAYBOOK READING
STATE
Moderate Neg
STATE AND PERCENTILE
Moderate NEG, 8 trading days running. The composite at -0.675 is in the band mapped by the engine.
WHY THE SIGNAL IS HERE
Regional aquifer storage over Chile’s copper-mining Atacama / Antofagasta region is at the level the engine has mapped to this state. The composite is a 63-day-smoothed, inverted-sign, 24-month z score, so the current reading reflects regional water balance against the trailing two-year baseline.
POSTURE FOR THE WEEKS AHEAD
Historical pattern is strongly as-is positive. State spread extreme-pos versus extreme-neg is plus 7.00 percentage points at 60d. The signal is strategic, not tactical.
WHAT THE CHART SHOWS
Today the composite reads -0.675, placing the dot inside the Moderate NEG band on the top panel. ACLED releases weekly on Fridays Eastern; watch for a step-change up on Friday afternoons which usually indicates a new protest or conflict wave in one of the four countries. The composite then persists for weeks because the 52-week z-score is slow-moving.
TOP INPUTS FIRING
- ACLED weekly event count Sum of protests, riots, battles, and strategic developments across copper admin1 regions in the four countries.
- 52-week rolling z-score One-year scale of weekly event frequency relative to the trailing baseline.
- Market phase direction Direction of the current state run, taken from the engine Market_Phase_Int column.
THE REGIME MAP
The three regime states, forward returns and sample share
Behavior across the three states computed from 8,764 engine trading days, with HG-conditional statistics against the 8,704-day subset where fwd 60d is observable. Baseline copper forward-60-day return (unconditional): plus 2.17 percent, median plus 1.56 percent, standard deviation 12.99 percent, percent negative 44.1 percent. State values from engine data, no fabrication.
| State | Phase | Share | Fwd 60d | HAC t | Edge vs baseline | Last firings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Event stress | +1 | 51.5% (1117 d) | +2.85% | +1.10pp | Jul 2026, Jun 2026, Apr 2026 | |
| Normal | 0 | 17.0% (368 d) | +1.18% | -0.58pp | Jun 2026, May 2026, Apr 2026 | |
| Event calm TODAY | -1 | 31.5% (682 d) | +0.34% | -1.42pp | Oct 2026, Jun 2026, Jun 2026 |
The historical pattern
24 years of Chile Atacama aquifer reading water-stress for copper
THE TRACK RECORD
Every state change in the last 2 years
Full state-transition history (several dozen transitions since 2002) is downloadable. The recent 2-year window shows the regime cadence into the current reading.
| State | Start | End | Duration | Fwd 60d COMEX HG |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Extreme Pos Water Stress | 10/28/2024 | 02/20/2025 | 79d | +3.19% |
| Neutral | 02/21/2025 | 03/17/2025 | 17d | -0.85% |
| Extreme Neg Water Surplus | 03/18/2025 | 10/02/2025 | 138d | +7.62% |
| Neutral | 10/03/2025 | 12/31/2025 | 62d | +2.66% |
| Extreme Neg Water Surplus | 01/02/2026 | 02/27/2026 | 39d | -4.81% |
| Neutral | 03/02/2026 | 03/16/2026 | 11d | +9.34% |
| Extreme Neg Water Surplus | 03/17/2026 | 03/17/2026 | 1d | +9.98% |
| Neutral | 03/18/2026 | 04/23/2026 | 26d | +12.14% |
| Extreme Neg Water Surplus | 04/24/2026 | 09/16/2026 | 100d | +4.69% |
| Neutral | 09/17/2026 | 10/26/2026 | 28d |
Scroll inside the table for the full history. Forward 60-day COMEX HG is measured from each run’s start date; a reader cannot trade off a start-date they only identify in hindsight, so this is a transparency log, not an alpha claim. Asterisked (*) returns are partial. The run is less than 60 trading days old. The full 60-day comparable fills in as more data arrives.
What this measures
Chile, Peru, DRC and Zambia together produce roughly 55 percent of world copper. Protests, strikes, and armed conflict in their mining regions shut mines, block haul-road traffic, and interrupt government permit processes; these events cascade to refined output on a 30-to-60-day lag. The signal sums ACLED weekly events across the copper-producing admin1 regions of the four countries, z-scores on a rolling 52-week window, and bounds through tanh.
Why it matters
Protests block haul roads, strikes shut flotation lines, government interventions constrain permit renewals. All three take weeks to months to feed through to refined output. The ACLED event count is the earliest warning readable on a weekly cadence; price moves 30 to 60 days later.
Event stress above the plus 0.6 band has historically preceded copper fwd-60-day returns well above baseline. Pair with physical-market indicators (LME copper stocks, concentrate TC/RC charges) to confirm supply tightness is landing.
The signal covers Chile, Peru, DRC and Zambia only. Mongolia (Rio Tinto Oyu Tolgoi), Kazakhstan, Mexico, Indonesia, and Australia are not in the composite. For a global supply picture, pair with signals that read mine production in those countries.
GO DEEPER
What the Chile Atacama Aquifer composite actually tells you (and what it does not)
The brief covers the ACLED instrument and bounding-box methodology across the four copper-producing countries, three signature episodes (2019 Chile social uprising, 2022-2023 Peru political crisis driving the Las Bambas blockade, 2024-2026 continued elevation), and the four caveats on reading a weekly geopolitical-event composite as a daily tape. Includes the regime-conditional forward returns and the IC decomposition.
Signal consumers and siblings
Not investment advice · The analysis on this page is informational and educational. Signal readings, historical case figures, and empirical statistics are derived from publicly available data and are provided without warranty. Hypothetical performance results have inherent limitations, including the benefit of hindsight. Readers who intend to trade should consult a licensed investment professional and see the research brief for the full disclaimer.
Last refreshed Nov 05, 2026 08:27 PM ET