GB: Chinese copper prices chase last weekâs rally at LME
Chinese commodity futures rose broadly Monday as the optimism over last week's breakthrough at the EU summit carried into this week, though gains were muted for commodities other than petrochemicals as the elation waned.
The most traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) gained 0.24 percent Monday to close at 55,370 yuan ($8,720.17) per ton. The contract opened 0.92 percent above Friday's closing price, catching up with gains on the London Metal Exchange (LME) after the domestic markets closed Friday.
Along with the jump following the EU summit, copper found early support in domestic news, according to the commodities team from the Australian bank ANZ. "The People's Bank of China announced they would use a basket of policy tools to maintain steady and reasonable growth in credit and money supply while separately, the chief researcher at the finance ministry said China would meet its 7.5 percent growth target for this year," the bank said in a research note Monday.
China's official purchasing managers' index for June fell 0.2 points to 50.2. Although the gauge of factory output came in higher than expected, the drop may have tempered some of the market's enthusiasm.
The benchmark three-month LME copper contract was trading at $7,631.20 per ton when the Chinese mainland markets closed Monday, down 1.4 percent following Friday's surge of 4.7 percent.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil for August delivery gave back 1.4 percent, falling to $83.76 per barrel, and the August Comex gold future was trading at $1,591.90 per ounce, down about 0.8 percent.
Still domestic petrochemical futures performed well. The September methanol contract on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange jumped 2.8 percent to close at 2,787 yuan per ton.