Copper prices are down 0.7% after hitting an all-time high last week. Goldman Sachs analysts are out with a note looking at supply-demand balances for 2026.Copper has traded just above the previous all-time-high, but is yet to make a clear break higher. While we believe that current fundamentals justify a copper price consolidation towards the top end of our forecast $10,000–11,000/t range, we think that any clear break higher is unlikely to be sustained.They estimate that the recent copper rally was driven by a weaker dollar, better China growth expectations and a tighter physical market along with bullish investor sentiment. They note that positioning is now stretched, and at the 99th percentile, though with low open interest.With all those elements, they can see investors piling further into copper and driving a breakout, but they believe it will be short-lived as the physical market isn't (yet) undersupplied.We do not believe that the fundamental tightness expected by the market will emerge over the next six months. Even accounting for a sizeable decline in global refined production, we hold to our view that the market will be in small surplus in 2026, consistent with our $10,500/t 2026 copper price forecast.They expect investors to start exiting copper in early 2026.One pushback I would note is from Ivanhoe CEO Robert Friedland:Hearing from a trusted source that grid investment is very central to China’s next “5 Year Plan” (to be publicly presented in March 2026)….this is very copper intensive. China is apparently planning to increase power grid investment by 30-40% over the next 5 years. This is equivalent to a compounded annual growth rate of 5-5.5%, up from 3.3% of annual growth over the past 5 years. In the context of copper, this is an increase of roughly 100,000 tonnes of additional copper demand per year.That's notable but global demand is around 28 million tonnes. At the same time, the US is also badly in need of major investment in its grid. This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.