SINGAPORE: London copper prices touched their highest since July on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would delay an increase in tariffs on Chinese goods scheduled for March 1.
Citing "substantial progress" in trade talks over the weekend, Trump also said he would plan a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his estate in Florida to conclude an agreement, assuming both sides make more progress.
Shanghai copper rose for a seventh day in eight but broker Jinrui Futures cautioned that while there were expectations of improved demand after the end of the off-season, current fundamentals did not provide strong support to prices.
Import premiums for physical copper in China <SMM-CUYP-CN> slipped to as low as $52 a tonne on Friday, the lowest since May "The key to a sustained market rally is a recovery in demand," Jinrui Futures added.
FUNDAMENTALS
* LME COPPER: Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was flat at $6,477 a tonne as of 0351 GMT, having earlier climbed as much as 0.5 percent to $6,508 a tonne, the highest since July 4. The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose as much as 1.6 percent to its highest since Dec. 4 and stood at 50,240 yuan ($7,512.75) a tonne by the end of the morning.
* COPPER STOCKS: On-warrant LME copper inventories <MCUSTX-TOTAL>, those not earmarked for delivery, slumped by nearly half to 39,800 tonnes in one day, the lowest since August 2005, LME data showed on Friday.
* CHILE: Mines Minister Baldo Prokurica on Friday maintained the government's 2019 copper price prediction of $3.05 per pound, amid optimism about U.S.-China trade talks underway in Washington.
* PERU: Chinese miner MMG Ltd said on Monday it will have to delay some shipments of copper concentrate from Matarani Port due to a blockade by an indigenous community of a road used to transport copper from the Las Bambas mine.
* OTHER METALS: Most Shanghai base metals climbed more than 1 percent, with nickel hitting its highest since Oct. 24 and tin jumping as much as 2.2 percent, the most since May 30. ShFE aluminium was up 0.6 percent after touching its highest since Dec. 27. In London, tin rose to its highest since April, while zinc and lead lost ground.
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MARKETS NEWS
* Asian shares scaled a 5-month peak after U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed he would delay a planned tariff increase on Chinese imports as talks between the two sides were making "substantial progress".
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