US copper futures rebounded from earlier weakness and closed near session highs on Friday as a late bout of short covering boosted prices in thin, choppy trade, dealers said.
Copper for December delivery settled up 1.60 cents at its session peak at $1.82 a lb at the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, after dipping to a low at $1.7720 in early trade.
While it was well below its contract high set last week at $1.8580, it remained in the middle of the recent range, with support pegged at last week's low of $1.7225 a lb.
Scott Meyers, senior trading analyst at Pioneer Futures said that as long as the active December contract continued to trade within its $1.75 to $1.85 range, the overall trend was still higher.
"Every time we make new highs by more than 3 to 5 cents it tends to come off another 10 cents, but that's OK ... the trend is still up."
October copper expired at the end of trade on Thursday and November has now moved into the spot position. It rose 3.20 cents to $1.8960 a lb. On Wednesday, spot October set an all-time high at $1.9890 per lb.
COMEX estimated final copper reached 12,000 lots, less than the 15,436 lots recorded on Thursday.
Copper fell overnight and opened in negative territory in New York Friday after the weekly inventory in Shanghai Exchange warehouse stocks surged 44 percent, causing some nervous longs to liquidate.
Copper stocks at Shanghai exchange warehouses jumped 14,485 tonnes to 47,350 in the week ended Thursday.
Rumours circulated on Thursday that China's Reserve Bureau was likely to release 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes of copper from its stockpile to cut high domestic prices.
Meanwhile, LME stocks rose 875 tonnes to 82,650 tonnes on Friday. COMEX warehouse inventories remained unchanged at 3,690 short tons.
Copper traders said the early morning selling was due mostly to orders lined up from overnight, with little involvement from any "big players."
Fuelling the market's turnaround was Friday's news that the US economy grew at a 3.8 percent annual rate, faster than forecast, in the third quarter. Strong spending by consumers and the government helped overcome the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to accelerate gross domestic product growth from the 3.3 percent second quarter annual rate.
Wall Street economists had forecast third quarter GDP would advance by 3.6 percent.
Economist Kurt Karl of Swiss Re in New York said, "This is a very positive, strong report, and encouraging because it included Katrina and a spike in oil prices, and we still just seem to have a lot of momentum going into the fourth quarter."
London three-months copper ended lower Friday after a volatile performance in slim business ahead of options declarations next week, dealers there said.
The market bounced between a high of $3,906 and a low of $3,825 a tonne before ending at $3,878, down $26 from Thursday's kerb close.
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