LONDON: Copper prices in London were on track for a second consecutive weekly gain on Friday, helped by efforts to support the property market in top metals consumer China, a weaker dollar and improved risk appetite in financial markets.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was steady at $8,409 a metric ton at 1105 GMT.
The metal used in power and construction was up 1.7% this week.
“The positive performance in the copper this week is very much driven by a risk-friendly environment in financial markets overall, extending the gains that were triggered by the lower than expected US CPI earlier this month,” said Julius Baer analyst Carsten Menke.
A weaker US currency, meanwhile, made dollar-priced commodities more attractive for buyers using yuan and other currencies. Industrial metals were also buoyed by China’s renewed support for the property sector.
“Announcements made this week indicate China is shifting gears with stimulus and providing support for real estate more directly,” Nitesh Shah at WisdomTree said.
Higher import demand in China is reflected in a rally in the Yangshan copper premium, which ended this week at a one-year high.
Copper inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 15.6% this week, pulling away from the lowest level in more than a year.
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Supply concerns from Panama and Peru also provided support for copper.
“While they likely only account for a combined 3% of global mining production, that is meaningful enough to drive the market to a deficit for this year,” WisdomTree’s Shah said.
On the technical front, the various supportive factors were not enough to drive copper through resistance coming from the 200-day moving average of $8,456.
In other metals, LME aluminium dipped 0.1% to $2,222.5 a ton, tin fell 2.1% to $23,965, zinc added 0.9% to $2,561, nickel was down 1.2% at $16,420 and lead slipped 0.5% to $2,204.
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