US copper futures closed higher on Tuesday, benefiting from a broad-based recovery in commodity markets following on Monday's risk aversion sell-off, traders said. Copper for December delivery ended up 2.70 cents at $3.5135 a lb. on the New York Mercantile Exchange's Comex division, after dealing between $3.4840 and $3.5505.
"When you get these big market disruptions like last on Friday, they do not want to sell out of their equities, so what they do is just clear out commodity portfolios for the short term, and they generally wait for the markets to consolidate up, like we are seeing today, and then start the buy programs back up," he added.
Final estimated futures volumes reached 11,709 lots, compared with Monday's official count of 16,187 lots. As of October 22, open interest in Comex copper futures fell 1,332 lots to 86,539 contracts.
Expectations of weaker US housing data this week will likely keep the market on the defensive, traders said. Existing home sales figures will be released on Wednesday and new homes sales on Thursday. In earning news, BHP Billion Ltd/Plc, the world's biggest miner said its third-quarter copper production increased 23 percent from year-ago levels to 307,800 tonnes, though it was 10 percent below the previous quarter.
Overnight inventory data showed London Metal Exchange (LME) copper warehouse stocks tack on another 425 tonnes on Tuesday, bringing total stocks to 151,525 tonnes. Comex copper stocks held steady at 19,557 short tons on Monday. London Metal Exchange (LME) copper for delivery in three months settled at $7,795 a tonne against $7,760 on Monday, when it fell to a one-month low of $7,665.
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