Copper Pulls Back From Recent Highs
February 16 2017 - 7:07AM
Dow Jones News
By Ed Ballard
LONDON--Copper prices slipped on Thursday but the prospect of
supply disruption kept the price near a 20-month high.
The London Metal Exchange's three-month copper contract was down
0.4% at $6,028.50 a metric ton. Other base metals were mixed.
The focus continued to be Chile's Escondida mine, majority owned
by BHP Billiton Ltd., where a strike over pay has reportedly been
postponed while union officials hold mediated talks with
management.
"The strike has now entered its seventh day and, while parties
are keen to talk to each other, it seems an agreement will take
some time to reach," wrote analysts at ING.
Copper has retreated since briefly cresting $6,200 a ton for the
first time since May 2015 on Monday, but remains up 9% for the
year. A production outage at Freeport-McMoRan Inc.'s Grasberg mine
in Indonesia because it hadn't received an export license has added
to concern about a potential supply crunch.
Brokerage firm Marex Spectron said that in recent sessions
buyers have stepped in whenever copper has fallen, but warned that
without another upward tilt, funds that bought during the recent
run-up will sell out of their positions, weighing on the price.
"Copper has looked vulnerable a few times this week on the way
down but dips have held and the uptrend is still broadly intact for
now," Marex wrote. However "The recent speculative longs need to
see it revisit $6,200 sooner rather than later."
Aluminium was down 1% at $1,895 a ton, zinc down 0.7% at
$2,850.50 a ton, lead down 0.7% at $2,304.50 a ton, nickel up 0.3%
at $10,940 a ton, tin up 0.6% at $19,950 a ton.
Write to Ed Ballard at ed.ballard@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 16, 2017 06:52 ET (11:52 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
BHP (ASX:BHP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
BHP (ASX:BHP)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024
