US MIDDAY: copper lower

Copper ended lower on Friday, extending a phase of consolidation from this week's two-week highs, as investors continued to weigh the economic impact from Japan's nuclear catastrophe and a worsening debt crisis in Europe. COMEX May copper dipped 0.55 cent to end at $4.4190 per lb, after dealing between $4.3990 and $4.4535.
Trading volumes continued to slow as concern about a worsening debt crisis in Portugal following the collapse of the country's government, coupled with violence in the Middle East and northern Africa, and Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis, cloud the outlook for the global economic recovery. COMEX copper futures volumes stood around 31,800 lots at 2:23 pm EDT (1944 GMT), almost 40 percent below the 30-day norm, Thomson Reuters preliminary data showed.