MANILA: London copper climbed more than 1 percent on Friday as reports that the U.S. Federal Reserve could pause from raising interest rates helped the metal recover from its steepest slide in five weeks in the prior session.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 1.5 percent at $6,159 a tonne, as of 0715 GMT. The contract dropped 1.7 percent on Thursday, hitting its weakest since Nov.14 at one point, after the arrest of a top Chinese executive in Canada dampened hopes for a resolution to the U.S.-China trade conflict.
The U.S.-China trade dispute remains the "largest downside risk for the global and Chinese economic outlook," said CRU analyst Chris Wu, who sees copper averaging around $6,470 in 2019, down from this year's average so far of about $6,574.
While demand from top copper consumer China is weaker this month, Wu said market sentiment for next year remains positive as China heads into the 70th year since its founding.
"Some market participants are expecting stimulus measures from the government especially infrastructure projects," she said.
The most-traded February copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed nearly flat at 49,180 yuan ($7,152) a tonne.
* FED PAUSE: The Wall Street Journal reported Fed officials are considering whether to signal a new wait-and-see mentality after a likely rate increase at their meeting in December.
* HUAWEI: U.S. President Donald Trump did not know about plans to arrest a top executive at Chinese telecoms giant Huawei in Canada, two U.S. officials said, in an apparent attempt to stop the incident from impeding crucial trade talks with Beijing.
* CHILE DEAL: Chile's state copper miner Codelco reached agreement on a new collective labor contract in early negotiations with the union of workers at its Gabriela Mistral mine in northern Chile.
* VEDANTA: An Indian court is expected on Friday to follow an experts' panel recommendation and order the reopening of a copper smelter closed after 13 people died when police fired on environmental protesters in May.
* U.S. JOBS: U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the U.S. job market is very strong, a day ahead of the release of non-farm payrolls, which economists said likely increased by 200,000 in November after surging by 250,000 in October.
* OTHER METALS: LME aluminium edged up 0.7 percent to $1,949 a tonne and zinc rose 1.5 percent to $2,633. In Shanghai, aluminium eased 0.3 percent to 13,630 yuan per tonne and zinc jumped 2 percent to 21,695 yuan.
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