Copper ends down

Copper ended lower at the London Metal Exchange on Wednesday with sentiment dampened after sluggish US data, but zinc bucked the trend to close higher.
The benchmark contract for copper for delivery in three months, which has received the lion's share of money allocated to metals futures by the investment community, ended at $6,900 per tonne, down $70 from Tuesday's closing price.
Zinc closed at $4,360, not far off from its all-time high of $4,580 recorded on November 10. In the previous session, zinc closed at $4,295. Dwindling stocks in LME-warehouses supported zinc, falling persistently since September this year to their lowest since 1991 at 88,950 tonnes. Last week, figures from the International Lead and Zinc Study Group showed a market in deficit of some 304,000 tonnes in the first nine months of the year.
Copper was trading in positive terrain for most of the day, but the market turned lower after US data revived worries of an economic slowdown and earlier technical buying ceased.
"Copper went above $7,000 but the market did not seem to accept that and pushed it lower again... a lot was technically driven and most of the upward movement was on the back of some funds," analyst Michael Widmer at Calyon said. In early trade copper rose above $7,000 to hit an intra-day high of $7,070, up 1.4 percent, with funds pushing the price up.
"In the US you had the University of Michigan index that was a bit disappointing and jobless claims were a little bit higher than expected," Widmer said. The University of Michigan's final reading of its November index of consumer sentiment fell to 92.1 from October's final reading of 93.6. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a final November reading of 93.1.
Meanwhile, the Labour Department said the number of US workers applying for jobless benefits rose by an unexpectedly steep 12,000 in the week ending November 18. Overall, jobless claims rose to 321,000 in the week, which compares with Wall Street forecasts for claims of 310,000. This follows a revised 309,000 the previous week.
Though there are longer-term concerns about the danger of a slowdown in economic growth, and the International Copper Study Group recently said there was excess metal in the market, traders believed the risks may have been overstated.
The London Metal Exchange, on which the bulk of industrial metals is traded, will go head-to-head with rival bourse the New York Mercantile Exchange when both launch mini contracts, designed to attract money from investors rather than metals firms, in the first week of December.
Aluminium closed at $2,670 against $2,677. It was difficult to predict future price movements as a two-day Thanksgiving holiday begins on Thursday in the US. Nickel closed down $150 at $31,150, tin was $75 lower at $9,900 and lead was down $5 at $1,534.