Copper prices slipped on Monday as sentiment was dominated by the protracted US-China trade dispute and subsequent damage to global growth and demand, and a stronger dollar. Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange ended down 0.2% at $5,892 a tonne. "The resolution, or otherwise, of the trade talks between the United States and China are of meaningful importance to base metals markets," said Guy Wolf, head of market analytics at Marex Spectron.
Traders said a break of the 21-day moving average at $5,925 triggered stop levels, which earlier in the session took prices to a session high at $5,946.50. Reinforcing this was a drop in copper stocks in LME warehouses, which fell 4,675 tonnes to 298,300 tonnes. Funds and dealers trading headline stocks had taken bets on lower prices after LME copper inventories last week rose above 300,000 tonnes from 239,925 tonnes.
Zinc was down 1.2% at $2,378 a tonne, a six-month low. Receding worries about zinc shortages on the LME market can also be seen in the discount for the cash over the three-month contract, which is around $2.60 a tonne, against a premium of more than $160 a tonne late May. Aluminium gained 0.3% to $1,809, lead gained 0.8% to $1,884, tin added 0.7% to $18,490 and nickel was up 1.9% to $12,720 a tonne.
Comments
Comments are closed.