US copper drops

Copper shed more than 1 percent on Thursday, pressured by poor Chinese manufacturing data that fed fears about sluggish demand prospects from the world's top red metal buyer. "After such a sharp move on what (the central bank action) was basically an item out of the blue, you're always going to get profit taking," said Stephen Briggs, analyst at BNP Paribas.
"Also people are thinking this is positive but in itself it doesn't solve the eurozone problem." In New York, the newly active March COMEX contract fell 4.15 cents to settle at $3.5340 per lb, closer to the bottom of its $3.5175 to $3.5995 session range. Futures volumes slowed in late New York business to just over 42,000 lots, about a third below the 30-day average, according to preliminary Thomson Reuters data.