Copper prices rose on Monday to their highest in more than two weeks as the dollar’s uptrend stalled and prompted fund buying, but expectations of higher supplies to come and slowing demand in top consumer China limited gains.
Benchmark copper CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange was up 1.3% at $9,499 a tonne at 1016 GMT. Prices of the metal used by investors to make bets on manufacturing and economic growth earlier touched $9,536, the highest since June 16.
“Investors are dominating copper prices moves at the moment,” said Dan Smith, managing director at Commodity Market Analytics. “But Chinese growth is slowing, inventories are building in China and beyond that mine supply rising.”
DOLLAR: The rising U.S. currency in recent months makes dollar-priced made metals more expensive for holders of other currencies, which has weighed on prices.
It steadied on Monday, giving metals a boost.
CHINA: Factory activity in China expanded at a softer pace in June, rising COVID-19 cases and supply chain woes drove output growth to the lowest in 15 months.
ED&F Man Capital Markets analyst Edward Meir said the bias for copper “could be somewhat lower considering growing COVID related lockdowns in Asia and the state of the physical markets in China”.
STOCKS: Copper stocks in bonded warehouses in China SMM-CUR-BON rose to their highest since July 2019 and at 435,600 tonnes, they are up more than 25% since the middle of February.
OTHER METALS: Aluminium CMLA3 was up 0.3% at $2,569 a tonne, zinc CMZN3 gained 0.9% to $2,962, lead CMPB3 rose 0.7% to $2,316, tin CMSN3 added 0.1% to $31,550 and nickel CMNI3 climbed 0.4% to $18,425.
NICKEL: Expectations of shortages have created a premium for the cash over the three month LME contract CMNI0-3.
Traders say the premium is due to a variety of factors including tight exchange stocks SNI-TOTAL-W, MNISTX-TOTAL, Russia’s planned export tax on nickel and the strike at Vale’s VALE3.SA Sudbury operation in Canada.
LEAD: Worries about supplies and draws on stocks in LME registered warehouses MPBSTX-TOTAL are behind the premium for the cash over the three-month contract CMPB0-3.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Pratima Desai; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)