Shanghai copper resumed a week-long fall on Thursday after a one-day blip up, and London futures held below $5,000 on persistent concerns that prices do not reflect fundamentals and a period of correction is needed. Currencies are likely to remain important drivers of sentiment.
Last week's high for copper coincided with the dollar's nadir and the falls in metals since have gone hand in hand with gains in the greenback until Wednesday's relatively benign US consumer price data sent it lower again. China's industrial metals demand will take one or two years to resume growth, Wang Lixin, president of China Minmetals Non-ferrous Metals Co Ltd said on Thursday.
Minmetals last week paid $1.4 billion for Australian mining assets it hopes to use as a launch pad to becoming a global supplier. Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange rose $25 to $4,985 a tonne by 0703 GMT. On Wednesday, prices fell to a two-week low at $4,880, recoiling after last Thursday's 8-month high of $5,388. "Markets are generally tired, they have had such a strong run and most of the recovery news has already been discounted - that's why we aren't pushing higher, even though we get decent data," MF Global commodities analyst Edward Meir said.
Comments
Comments are closed.