Copper rose off a 20-month low on Friday but remained on track for a third weekly fall largely due to fears of a slowdown in China's economic growth. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was last bid up 0.71 percent at $6,818 a tonne, off an intraday low of $6,692, its weakest level since October 2011, bringing losses for the week to nearly 4 percent.
BNP Paribas analyst Stephen Briggs cited two factors supporting the price. "One is that there appeared to be some intervention by the central bank in China to stabilise the situation with the liquidity crunch," he said. "Also, losses have been pretty substantial in the last few days, and you always get some kind of bounce." Base metals, along with other financial markets, have been hammered after the US Federal Reserve said on Wednesday that by mid-2014 it would curb its programme of monthly liquidity injections which have supported commodity prices since the financial crisis.
Fears of an immediate banking crunch in China eased overnight on market talk the central bank had guided the biggest state lenders to provide more short-term funds to smaller banks. China's short-term funding rates remain elevated, however. Indicating poor demand for copper, data showed inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 3.2 percent from last Friday, while daily LME data showed stocks rose by 21,725 tonnes to 664,850, their highest level in a decade.
Data on Thursday showed China's factory activity had weakened to a nine-month low in June, heightening the risk of a sharper second-quarter slowdown and helping push copper to a 20-month low early in the session. "With many complexes now clearly oversold in base metals, we should start to stabilise heading into next week as new (albeit lower) trading ranges start to get carved out," said INTL FC Stone analyst Ed Meir.
Lending copper some support, however, Chinese refined copper imports rose to 232,155 tonnes in May from April's 183,023, although they were down 23.15 percent year on year, customs data showed. Aluminium ended down 0.22 percent at $1,793 a tonne in rings, having earlier hit $1,784.75 a tonne, its lowest level in more than three years. "We think aluminium could come under additional selling pressure, with LME aluminium stockpiles hitting record high levels of 5.43 million tonnes," ANZ said in a report.
"High supply in the market appears to be offsetting reports of China's government looking to block plans to build 10 million tonnes of new lower cost capacity in the Xinjiang province alongside recent smelter cuts." Tin closed up 2.56 percent at $20,000 a tonne. The metal had tumbled to its lowest in 9-1/2 months on Thursday. Indonesia, the world's top exporter, plans to revise export rules from next month to push for physical trading and price-setting on the domestic market. Zinc ended up 0.79 percent at $1,844 a tonne, lead ended up 0.10 percent at $2,020 a tonne, while nickel ended up 2.74 percent at $14,075 a tonne.
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