London copper rises as dollar rally halts ahead of Fed minutes

London copper rebounded on Wednesday from a sharp drop in the previous session, as a halt in the dollar's rally eased pressure on greenback-priced metals.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 1.8% to $9,478 a tonne by 0711 GMT, while the most-traded August copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed down 0.9% at 69,110 yuan ($10,684.25) a tonne, tracking overnight losses in London.

"Metals have all seen very modest bounces from yesterday's lows but on very small volumes indeed and the question is will we see a post option expiration sell-off, which seems to be the usual market reaction at the moment," Malcolm Freeman, a director at UK brokerage Kingdom Futures, said in a note.

"Consumers are not interested in paying these prices and the speculative bulls must be starting to wonder how to keep the super cycle story alive."

The dollar traded sideways as investors awaited the US Federal Reserve's minutes from its last policy meeting due later in the day. A weaker dollar makes LME metals cheaper to holders of other currencies.

FUNDAMENTALS

• China aims to churn out 20 million tonnes of recycled non-ferrous metals, including copper, aluminium and lead, the state planner said in a statement.

• The first round of China's much-anticipated state metal reserves auctions needed only one of two days allotted for all the copper and aluminium on offer to be sold, notices on the bidding platforms and two industry sources said.

• China's refined tin output in June rose 10.9% from the prior month to 15,567 tonnes, state-backed research house Antaike said.

• LME aluminium fell 0.4% to $2,519.50 a tonne, nickel rose 1.5% to $18,265 a tonne.

• ShFE aluminium declined 1.2% at 18,930 yuan a tonne, nickel dropped 1.3% to 135,480 yuan a tonne and ShFE tin decreased 0.7% to 216,340 yuan a tonne.