AGL 38.09 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-0.18%)
AIRLINK 136.34 Increased By ▲ 2.15 (1.6%)
BOP 9.20 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (3.95%)
CNERGY 4.72 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (0.64%)
DCL 8.85 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (2.08%)
DFML 38.34 Decreased By ▼ -1.44 (-3.62%)
DGKC 85.45 Increased By ▲ 0.30 (0.35%)
FCCL 35.15 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (0.72%)
FFBL 76.21 Increased By ▲ 0.61 (0.81%)
FFL 12.66 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.63%)
HUBC 108.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.75 (-0.69%)
HUMNL 14.73 Increased By ▲ 0.63 (4.47%)
KEL 5.58 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (3.33%)
KOSM 7.96 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (2.71%)
MLCF 40.78 Decreased By ▼ -0.59 (-1.43%)
NBP 70.94 Increased By ▲ 1.24 (1.78%)
OGDC 195.25 Increased By ▲ 1.63 (0.84%)
PAEL 26.96 Increased By ▲ 0.75 (2.86%)
PIBTL 7.46 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (0.54%)
PPL 168.02 Increased By ▲ 4.17 (2.55%)
PRL 26.19 Decreased By ▼ -0.17 (-0.64%)
PTC 20.34 Increased By ▲ 0.87 (4.47%)
SEARL 92.75 Increased By ▲ 8.35 (9.89%)
TELE 7.84 Decreased By ▼ -0.15 (-1.88%)
TOMCL 35.49 Increased By ▲ 1.44 (4.23%)
TPLP 8.91 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (2.18%)
TREET 17.29 Increased By ▲ 0.11 (0.64%)
TRG 59.27 Decreased By ▼ -1.73 (-2.84%)
UNITY 31.02 Increased By ▲ 2.06 (7.11%)
WTL 1.37 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 10,901 Increased By 125.5 (1.16%)
BR30 32,654 Increased By 420 (1.3%)
KSE100 101,357 Increased By 1274.6 (1.27%)
KSE30 31,488 Increased By 295 (0.95%)

Copper steadied on Tuesday, supported by a softer dollar and firm oil, but prices are still within sight of recent lows brought about by a resurfacing of worries over demand growth in top consumer China. Oil prices touched a six-month high just below $50 a barrel. The US currency has slipped in recent days, making dollar-denominated commodities cheaper for non-US buyers.
Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange ended up 0.1 percent at $4,655 a tonne. The metal used in power and construction hit $4,594 on Friday, its lowest since February 25. Copper's woes have largely been a result of concern over China's economic outlook, with data showing factory output increased more slowly than expected in April and fixed-asset investment growth eased to 10.5 percent year on year in the four months to the end of April.
"The April data showed that the short-term rebound in economic activity in China has proved to be short-lived," said Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg. "The credit numbers for April fell. I wouldn't be surprised to see further weakness in demand and prices."
Chinese banks reduced new lending sharply in April to 555.6 billion yuan ($85.2 billion). That was much lower than expected and less than half the 1.37 trillion yuan in March.
"There are signs that some of the recent optimism is receding and there is evidence of a slowdown in some of the order books of the Chinese copper fabricators, which is being repeated in Europe," Kingdom Futures said in a note. "If this continues there could well be another setback in metals prices generally, and the next month or two could see the markets testing the lows once again."
However, some cheer for industrial metals was provided by last week's news that China will invest about 4.7 trillion yuan in transport infrastructure projects over the next three years. In other metals, three-month aluminium fell 0.3 percent to $1,545 a tonne, zinc rose 0.2 percent to $1,904, lead was down 0.9 percent to $1,722, tin gained 0.3 percent to $16,960 and nickel added 0.9 percent to $8,800.

Copyright Reuters, 2016

Comments

Comments are closed.