Copper (HG) delivery months at a glance — every contract's record over its tenure as the lead month.
Futures Seasonality · Contract-Month Study
Every copper contract 2010–2026, measured over its seat as the lead contract · Updated for 2026
Copper’s five seats contain the cleanest seasonal structure of any market we studied, and both of its extremes: the best win rate on any board (the winter seat, 81%) and the worst (the summer seat, 19%). Hope is priced in winter; reality collects in summer.
Most seasonality tables slice the calendar. This one slices the contracts. Each delivery month below is measured over its time as the lead contract: from the open of the day it takes over the front of the board to the close of the day it hands off the lead. No roll gaps, no splicing, one contract per observation. Copper contracts lead for roughly two months each (the March and December contracts closer to three), so these are seats, not months.
Copper (HG) — Average Change by Seat
Average change while each contract leads the board. Hover any bar for the detail.
Each row is one of copper’s five active delivery months: seats risen since 2010, average change, and average high-to-low range. “Typically leads” is the median window.
| Contract | Typically leads | Up / Down | Win rate | Avg change | Avg range |
|---|
Table view doubles as the accessible read of the chart above.
The winter seat is the study’s best hand. Holding copper from early December through February, the China-restocking and Q1-hope window, the March contract has risen in 13 of 16 seats, 81%, the highest win rate of the 95 files we measured, though it typically peaks mid-seat and hands off cooling.
The summer seat is the study’s worst. The July contract, leading from late April through June as spring’s hopes meet the year’s actual demand, has won 3 times in 16, 19%, with the fades carrying to the hand-off. No seat anywhere loses more reliably.
The rest is macro. The May seat audits the winter story, the September seat convalesces, and the three-month autumn seat is a pure referendum on the year’s headlines, 8 and 8 with tails like 2016’s +29% and 2011’s −18.5%. Copper’s seasonal edges live in its two famous seats; everything else is the world economy voting.
A seat’s record tells you how its stretch of the year has treated the lead contract historically. It doesn’t tell you where the current one sits today, whether this cycle is tracking the record or fighting it, or the levels that matter into the next session. That is what The Traders Brief does every morning, across energy, metals, and the indexes.
See today’s read →Which copper contract month is historically strongest?
The March (H) winter seat: 13 of 16 higher, 81%, the best win rate of any contract seat on any board we cover.
Which copper contract month is weakest?
The July (N) summer seat: 3 of 16, 19%, the worst hand in our entire study, as spring hope meets summer arithmetic.
Why does copper only have five contract months here?
Only Mar, May, Jul, Sep, and Dec take the lead on copper’s board, each seat lasting roughly two to three months.
Contract tendencies are drawn from 16 years of individual Copper futures contract history (2010–2026), each measured over its own seat as the lead contract, and describe the past. They are not a forecast and not trading advice. Markets can and do trade against their record in any given year. © 2026 The Traders Brief.