BS: Copper Heads for Longest Slide in Six Months as Recovery Slows
By Anna Stablum and Millie Munshi
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Copper fell, heading for the longest slump since December, after a report showed U.S. employers hired fewer workers than expected, reviving concern that the global recovery will slow.
U.S. payrolls climbed by 431,000 in May, the Labor Department said. That was less than the 536,000 expected by economists, based on the median of 82 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey. Copper has dropped 7.4 percent since May 28, heading for the biggest weekly loss since January.
“The jobs number was very bad,” said Gijsbert Groenewegen, a partner at Gold Arrow Capital Management in New York. “It means that the economy doesn’t have any traction. Markets will struggle from here and people are going to sell base metals.”
Copper for July delivery slid 10 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $2.8465 a pound at 10:59 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Five days of losses would be the longest slump since Dec. 10. Earlier, the metal touched $2.8425, the lowest price for a most- active contract since Feb. 5.
A close at $2.874 would leave the metal down 22 percent since reaching a 20-month high in April, sending copper into a bear market. Prices have fallen as China enacted measures to cool its property market and Europe struggled with a sovereign- debt crisis.
“Market attention remains overtly focused on macro uncertainties regarding China and the euro zone, rather than prompt fundamentals,” Barclays Capital analysts led by Nicholas Snowdon said today in a report.
China is the world’s biggest metals user, followed by the U.S.
Copper for delivery in three months fell 3.4 percent to $6,300 a metric ton ($2.86 a pound) on the LME.
Zinc fell 4.3 percent to $1,670 a ton, after earlier touching $1,646, the lowest price since July 31. Nickel, lead, tin and aluminum also dropped.
Anna Stablum in London at +44-20-7330-7500 or astablum@bloomberg.net; Millie Munshi in New York at +1-212-617-5543 or mmunshi@bloomberg.net.
--With assistance from Shobhana Chandra in Washington. Editors: To contact the reporters on the story: Steve Stroth, Daniel Enoch.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net.
