US copper jumps

In New York, the key December COMEX contract jumped 14.05 cents, or 4.5 percent, to settle at $3.2465 per lb on Thursday, near the upper end of its late $3.1185 to $3.2720 range. A little more than 49,000 lots traded in New York - half as active as during last week's sell-off and about 10 percent below the 30-day norm, according to preliminary Thomson Reuters data.
Copper is down nearly 30 percent from mid-February record at $10,190 a tonne and $4.60 per lb, and analysts believe its sharp drop had cut prices to near the cost of production, raising the risk that miners could begin to delay new mine investments like they did in 2008, tightening supplies.