SINGAPORE: Copper and other base metals in London rose on Wednesday after China released data that showed its economy grew at a steady pace in the first quarter.
China's economy grew at a 6.4 percent pace in the first quarter from a year earlier, defying expectations for a further slowdown, as industrial production jumped sharply and consumer demand showed signs of improvement.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange jumped after China released data around 0200 GMT. It retreated slightly later on but was still up 0.3 percent at 6,511 a tonne at 0517 GMT. Shanghai copper edged up 0.2 percent.
China's Wednesday data also showed a pick-up in fixed-asset investment, which could support copper prices, while supply could be tight this year due to a global delay in copper mines expansion, said Victor You, an analyst at CLSA in Hong Kong.
Fixed-asset investment expanded 6.3 percent in January-to-March from a year earlier, in line with estimates and picking up from the previous period.
FUNDAMENTALS
ALUMINIUM: Shanghai aluminium climbed to as high as 13,980 yuan ($2,085.51) a tonne, its highest intra-day level since Dec. 3, 2018, after China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released data showing daily aluminium output in March fell 3.6 percent from January and February.
The world's top aluminium-producing country churned out 2.88 million tonnes of primary metal in March, which works out at around 92,900 tonnes per day, its lowest rate since October, according to Reuters calculations.
But You said many people do not look at the NBS aluminium data due to its inconsistency with other estimates by the industry.
ZINC: Shanghai zinc
slipped to as low as 21,715 yuan a tonne, its lowest in three weeks, tracking a fall in London zinc in the previous session after big zinc stocks flowed into the London Metal Exchange (LME) warehouses.
The zinc contract in Shanghai was down 1.8 percent at 21,830 yuan a tonne, while the benchmark zinc in London
rebounded 0.2 percent.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.