FUNDAMENTALS
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange had slipped 0.3 percent to $6,676 a tonne by 0045 GMT, paring gains of 1 percent from the previous session. LME copper prices were set to advance by 0.6 percent for the week in their biggest weekly rise since late August.
The most-traded January copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange climbed 0.5 percent to 47,260 yuan ($7,723) a tonne in overnight trade.
New claims for US unemployment benefits held below 300,000 for a sixth straight week last week, suggesting the labour market was shrugging off jitters over a slowing global economy.
Euro zone businesses performed much better than forecasters expected this month and China's vast factory sector grew a shade faster, but US manufacturing activity sputtered to its slowest since July, underscoring the uneven nature of the post-crisis global economy.
Spanish smelter Atlantic Copper aims for record production this year and expects increased capacity at copper smelters globally to absorb the output from mines and keep the concentrates market in balance through 2017.
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or MARKETS NEWS * Global equity markets rose on Thursday, with stocks on Wall Street climbing more than 1 percent as US corporate earnings continued to beat expectations, while government debt prices slid on stronger American and German economic reports.