The BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) share price is having a very strong start to the week.
In morning trade, the mining giant's shares are up 4% to $40.25.
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Why is the BHP share price racing higher?
Investors have been scrambling to buy the Big Australian's shares on Monday after its NYSE listed shares jumped on Friday night.
The BHP share price on Wall Street ended the week with an enormous 9.75% gain on Friday after investors piled into the resources sector.
It wasn't just BHP's shares that jumped. The US listed shares of Freeport-McMoRan, Rio Tinto Limited (ASX: RIO), Southern Copper Corp, and Vale all rose ~10% during the session.
But why did they jump?
Investors were scrambling to buy resources shares amid speculation that China could be about to end its COVID zero policy. This could be a big boost to China's economic growth prospects and unsurprisingly put a rocket under commodity prices.
For example, according to CommSec, aluminium rose 4.2%, copper climbed 7.1%, iron ore rose 2.1%, nickel was up 4.5%, oil rose 5%, and zinc climbed 5.7%.
Why aren't the gains as strong today?
You might have noticed that the BHP share price isn't climbing 10% this morning. What gives?
The reason for this is that China has been quick to quash speculation that it will be getting rid of its COVID zero policy.
According to Bloomberg, an official from China's National Health Commission spoke at the weekend and revealed that the policy will remain in place. Hu Xiang said:
Previous practices have proved that our prevention and control plans and a series of strategic measures are completely correct.
Goldman Sachs' economist Hui Shan believes that the reopening of China is still some way off as "the government still needs to keep its zero-Covid policy until all preparations are done." Goldman expects a reopening in the second quarter of next year.
