COMEX copper prices closed with steep losses on Monday, failing to recover despite a surge in sales of new US homes, amid near-term economic outlooks in the US, UK and China that offer little reason to push industrial metals beyond current lofty levels.
With US equity markets slipping, the dollar edging higher against the euro, and anticipation of weakening economic data from the United States and Britain this week, COMEX copper slid early with red metal prices in Shanghai, and stayed sharply lower throughout the session. Metal trading on the London Metal Exchange was closed on Monday for the Easter holiday.
Benchmark May copper contracts on COMEX in New York finished down 2.20 percent, or 9.70 cents, at $4.3030 per lb. Copper found some underpinning from sales of new US single-family homes which jumped 11.1 percent in March to a 300,000 unit annual rate, compared with an upwardly revised decline of 13.5 percent in February.