BLBG: Copper Advances on Speculation Expanded Fed Stimulus to Stoke U.S. Growth
Copper rose in New York and London on speculation the Federal Reserve will succeed in supporting growth in the U.S., the world’s second-biggest user of the metal.
The Fed said yesterday it will expand stimulus by buying an additional $600 billion of Treasuries through June. The U.S. jobless rate probably held in October at 9.6 percent for a third month, economists said before a Labor Department report tomorrow.
“Economic growth in the U.S. will be supported in every possible way, and thus also demand for commodities,” said Daniel Briesemann, an analyst at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt.
Copper for December delivery advanced 9.55 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $3.8805 a pound at 8:21 a.m. on the Comex in New York. The metal for three-month delivery climbed 2.4 percent to $8,516 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. All of the six main metals traded on the LME advanced, led by zinc.
U.S. nonfarm payrolls probably climbed 60,000 even as the jobless rate was unchanged, according to the median of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. LME copper has climbed 15 percent this year, mostly because of economic growth in China, the world’s largest consumer, and a weaker dollar.
New Record?
Copper has “one of the most constructive outlooks among the major commodities,” Morgan Stanley analyst Hussein Allidina wrote in a report e-mailed today. “It is feasible copper prices could spike well above the 2008 record high.”
Copper rose to a record $8,940 a ton in July 2008. The U.S. Dollar Index, a six-currency gauge of the greenback’s strength has dropped 2.5 percent this year, making dollar-priced metals cheaper in terms of other monies.
Tin for three-month delivery on the LME rose 1.3 percent to $26,190 a ton. Prices reached a record $27,338.50 on Oct. 14. The metal has jumped 55 percent this year, leading advances on the exchange, after production was disrupted in Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Aluminum jumped 1.9 percent to $2,464 a ton and zinc gained 4 percent to $2,502 a ton. Lead advanced 3 percent to $2,510 a ton and nickel climbed 1.6 percent to $23,928 a ton.
To contact the reporters on this story: Claudia Carpenter in London at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net; Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net