Copper rebounds from 3-month low ahead of Fed policy statement

LONDON: Copper, zinc and aluminium rebounded from three-month lows on Wednesday as a sharp rise in oil prices, a firmer tone to equities and a retreat in the dollar buoyed metals prices ahead of a policy statement from the Federal Reserve.

Expectations that the Fed will announce another U.S. rate hike, along with worries over the prospect of a global trade war, earlier weighed on industrial metals. They later recovered to move broadly higher.

"The U.S. dollar is weak, we have rising stock markets, which are leading the pace, and we have a strongly rising oil price," Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann. "All these three factors are pushing the metals prices up."

Metals are primarily reacting to macroeconomic factors in the absence of strong fundamental drivers, ABN Amro analyst Casper Burgering said. "We will have to wait for some good fundamental news before we see prices increase again,"  he said.