Copper rose on Tuesday after hitting a two-week low in the previous session as hopes that US President Donald Trump would shift focus away from failed healthcare reform to economic stimulus lifted stocks and the dollar. Base metals gained on US-led buying after data showed a surge in US consumer confidence to a 16-year high, a trader said.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange closed up 2 percent at $5,873 a tonne. It touched $5,671, its lowest since March 9, on Monday.
Speculative long positions in copper were 6.6 percent of market open interest on Friday, down from a peak of 38 percent in mid-January, according to brokers Marex Spectron.
Workers are returning to work this week at the world's biggest copper mine in Chile after a strike that began on February 9.
Lost output from the strike and a long-drawn-out production restart at Escondida could amount to 230,000 tonnes, helping keep prices around $5,950 a tonne in the second quarter, said Citi analyst David Wilson. China's central bank said it would provide financial support to help manufacturers upgrade and modernise, including measures to increase the scope for insurance companies to invest in the manufacturing sector.
China's top copper smelters have agreed to an 11 percent cut in second-quarter treatment and refining fees, after mine disruptions curbed the supply of raw material, three sources said on Tuesday. Some Japanese aluminium buyers have agreed to pay producers a premium of $128 per tonne for shipments in the April-June quarter, reflecting higher overseas spot premiums, two sources directly involved in the quarterly pricing talks said.
LME "tom-next" aluminium - buying today and selling the day after - moved into backwardation, reflecting a lack of easily available nearby supply. Stocks in LME-registered warehouses have fallen 12 percent since March 1 to 1.92 million tonnes. Of this, 877,900 tonnes, or 46 percent, are cancelled warrants due to be delivered out of warehouses, suggesting tight aluminium supply in the LME system. Aluminium finished up 0.7 percent at $1,944 a tonne. Zinc closed 2.3 percent higher at $2,823 a tonne, while lead gained 1.4 percent to $2,329 a tonne and tin finished up 2.7 percent at $20,035 a tonne. Nickel closed up 2.3 percent at $9,995 a tonne.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.