Copper ended up for its third straight week on Friday, showing a further resilience to bend amid macro-economic concerns and a still-uncertain Asian demand outlook. Copper's positive tone continued to decouple from the broader base complex as prices maintained momentum near last week's 3-month high, as supply-side risks remained in place and investors continued to pin their hopes on a second-half demand revival in China.
The red metal's gains were even more impressive when compared with other base metal markets. Aluminium, for example, saw further technical weakness seep in this week after prices broke down below the 200-day moving average.
Aluminium's weakness persisted after the London Metal Exchange (LME) addressed mounting concerns about its warehousing network, saying firms with operations in one location storing more than 900,000 tonnes will have to load out a minimum of 3,000 tonnes per day from next April.
LME three-month copper closed up $42 at $9,672 a tonne, very near last week's peak at $9,789.75, which marked the priciest level since April. In New York, the benchmark September COMEX contract settled up 3.30 cents at $4.4130 per lb. But volumes continued to run thin, with a little more than 35,600 lots traded in New York, about a third below the 30-day norm, according to Thomson Reuters preliminary data. Copper inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 22.3 percent from last Friday, the exchange said on Friday.
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