Copper ticks higher on low inventories, equity bounce
London copper prices edged upwards for a second session in early Asian trade on Tuesday, tracking gains in equity markets and as inventories of the metal continued to fall. Copper stocks in London Metal…
From the Energy Metal News archive. This article dates from Jan 7, 2020 and is preserved as first published.
London copper prices edged upwards for a second session in early Asian trade on Tuesday, tracking gains in equity markets and as inventories of the metal continued to fall.
Copper stocks in London Metal Exchange-monitored warehouses MCU-STOCKS have slumped by 57.5% since late August and are currently at 142,900 tonnes, the lowest since March 2019.
FUNDAMENTALS
* COPPER: Three-month copper on the LME rose 0.4% to $6,161 a tonne by 0136 GMT, extending a 0.2% gain from the previous session. The most-traded March copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange climbed 0.3% to 48,960 yuan ($7,019.46) a tonne.
The most-traded March copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange climbed 0.
* GOLDMAN: Investment bank Goldman Sachs said on Monday it remained bullish on copper because smelters were suffering from depressed margins.
* FIRST QUANTUM: Canada’s First Quantum Minerals Ltd fell as much as nearly 4% on Monday after the copper miner said it had adopted a poison pill takeover defense, nearly a month after Jiangxi Copper<0358.HK< agreed to pay $1.1 billion to become the miner’s largest shareholder.
* MINMETALS: China Minmetals Corp said on Monday its net profit rose by 28.9% in 2019 and annual revenue increased by 13.4%, exceeding 600 billion yuan ($86.04 billion) for the first time, although its nickel and zinc resources fell.
* OTHER METALS: The LME complex was mixed, with aluminium and zinc both down 0.3% and nickel slipping 0.1%. Lead added 0.1% and tin nudged up 0.2%.
* OIL: Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann said on Monday a jump in oil prices since the United States killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani would push up miners’ costs and this was leaving base metals relatively resilient to increased geopolitical tension.
