Copper Pulls Back Ahead of Fed Minutes
February 22 2017 - 6:25AM
Dow Jones News
By Ed Ballard
LONDON--The recent rally in copper prices stalled on Wednesday,
despite ongoing production outages at two big mines that have
raised concerns over global supply.
The London Metal Exchange's three-month copper contract was down
0.5% at $6,025 a metric ton, within the range of recent sessions.
Other base metals were mixed.
A strengthening U.S. dollar was making dollar-priced commodities
more expensive for holders of other currencies. The WSJ Dollar
Index was up 0.05% at 91.33, close to a one-month high.
The downward pressure could intensify later in the session
depending on what the market gleans from the minutes of the U.S.
Federal Reserve's January policy meeting, which could tilt
expectations of how aggressively the Fed will increase interest
rates this year.
Workers at BHP Billiton Ltd.'s Escondida mine in Chile, the
world's largest, are on strike, while Freeport-McMoRan Inc. is in a
standoff with the Indonesian government over permission to export
copper concentrate produced at the Grasberg mine.
Analysts at brokerage firm Marex Spectron said base metals were
put under pressure overnight by Chinese data showing home prices
rose in 45 cities last month out of 70 cities tracked--the fewest
in a year.
In addition to the supply risk from Chile and Indonesia, Marex
said LME data showing large drawdowns of zinc, aluminum and tin
overnight provided some additional support for metals prices.
Lead was up 0.8% at $2,282 a ton. Nickel was down 0.1% at
$10,820 a ton and tin was down 0.1% at $19,730 a ton. Aluminium and
zinc were little changed at $1,883 a ton and $2,870 a ton
respectively.
Write to Ed Ballard at ed.ballard@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 22, 2017 06:10 ET (11:10 GMT)
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