Short-cover buying helped COMEX copper futures recoup some of their sharp losses from the previous session, but COMEX brokers called Thursday's business exceptionally light as many players stayed out to lick their wounds after Wednesday's downdraft.
Short-covering and a decline in the dollar helped pick copper prices up after they were slammed a day earlier from a massive increase to London Metal Exchange warehouse inventories.
"Yesterday we were down on huge stock deliveries. Today, the stocks movements were lower. The market is very quiet. We came up off the lows in the course of the day yesterday and we're continuing that today," said one copper broker. "It's an exceptionally quiet day after an exceptionally busy day yesterday with the selloff," he added.
Active September copper raced 1.80 cents higher to $1.2885 a lb on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division. On Wednesday, it traded down nearly 5 percent to $1.25 a lb. on the huge LME inventory addition. Thursday's range spanned $1.26 to $1.2860 per lb.