LONDON: Copper and other industrial metals fell on Friday after weak economic data from top consumer China fanned concerns over demand and hopes of a further US rate cut this year faded.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 1percent to USD10,850 per metric ton in official open outcry trading, having slipped to as low as USD10,822 earlier in the session.
The metal was still on course for a weekly gain of around 1.2percent, having briefly crossed the USD11,000 mark on Thursday. It hit an all-time peak of USD11,200 on October 29.
“Copper looked like it was going to hit a new high a couple of times last week,” said Robert Montefusco at broker Sucden Financial. “It’s failing at the moment because the fear of the AI bubble in stocks bursting is keeping us at bay. But longer term, I think copper goes again.”
The selloff in US stocks on Thursday followed through into Asia on Friday, Montefusco noted. “The production numbers in China were not so good ... the property numbers weren’t very good either.”
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