LONDON: Copper prices rose in London on Friday as the dollar continued to weaken after US jobs data, offsetting the bearish effect from higher metal inventories in exchange-registered warehouses.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.4% at $8,173 per metric ton by 1700 GMT.
The metal is up 0.9% so far this week, heading for a second week of gains. The dollar fell to its lowest since September after data showed the world’s largest economy created fewer jobs than expected last month, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve is likely to pause hiking interest rates again at the December meeting.
“The dollar has been under pressure and thus helped with the improvement for the importer countries’ purchasing power, which support copper prices,” Alastair Munro at broker Marex said in a note. Copper, used in power and construction, is still down 2.4% so far this year due to the patchy post-pandemic recovery of demand in China, the world’s largest metals consumer.
“Disappointing manufacturing PMI data from China (released earlier this week) have set lower expectations for the base metals complex,” said Nitesh Shah, commodity strategist at WisdomTree.
Copper stocks in LME-registered warehouses increased after a recent decline, daily data showed, while copper inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 11.3% this week.
On the supply side, Panama on Friday passed a law banning new mining concessions following protests against a recently-approved contract with Canada’s First Quantum to operate a key copper mine. The ban will not hurt the current First Quantum operations.
LME aluminium rose 1.1% to $2,252.5 a metric ton, zinc gained 1.7% to $2,519, tin climbed 1.6% to $24,345 and nickel was up 1.2% at $18,200.
Lead gained 2.1% to $2,168, after touching $2,174, its highest since Oct. 9. The metal is heading for the third consecutive weekly growth.
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