US MIDDAY: copper soars

In New York, the May COMEX contract rose 6.50 cents, or 1.7 percent, to settle at $3.9025 per lb, near the upper end of its $3.8415 to $3.9165 session range. In after-hours trade, it eased back below $3.90, but remained up more than 1.5 percent from Monday's close.
But volume remained thin as investors continued to weigh the prospects of weakening demand growth in China, which accounts for about 40 percent of the global consumption. Volume neared 54,000 lots in late New York business, nearly a quarter below the 30-day norm, according to Thomson Reuters preliminary data.