Reuters reported that London copper edged down snapping three days of gains on caution ahead of the release of US non farm payrolls data later in the day and with uncertainty on Chinese copper demand despite encouraging manufacturing data from the top metals consumer.
Fundamentals;
1. Three month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell just USD 2 to USD 7,824 per tonne by 0116 GMT but is heading for a near unchanged performance on the week after three weeks of losses.
2. The most active February copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange ticked down CNY 30 to CNY 57,080 per tonne but is on track to log 0.3% weekly rise.
3. Weak downstream demand in China has been weighing on base metal prices recently. Base metal spot prices in China have been trading at a discount to front month futures prices for sometime now and this is denting risk appetites.
4. Asia's large economies started to pick up steam last month after a year of slower growth while US manufacturing showed modest improvement.
5. US companies added jobs in October at the fastest pace in 8 months, a sign of modest healing in the labor market just days before a presidential election that could hinge on the economy.
6. The International Monetary Fund said that financing issues remained the main obstacle for debt laden Greece to receive more bailout money from its international lenders.
7. Mr Tsutomu Okubo vice Finance Minister of Japan said that Japan's government is ready to compromise with the opposition to pass a crucial bill needed to prevent a crippling funding shortfall.
8. World finance chiefs this weekend will press the United States on how it can prevent its fiscal problems from hitting the global economy and will seek reassurance from Europe that it has a grip on its debt crisis.
9. China's central bank will promote lending to small businesses by letting small and medium sized financial institutions that meet loan growth requirements maintain relatively low reserve ratios.
10. In industry news, Japan Pan Pacific Copper sold 120,000 tonnes of copper to China under 2013 term contract at USD 85 premium.
11. Glencore closely watched trading operations performed strongly in the third quarter against a more uneven picture for its mines where strikes and Congo power cuts dampened growth.
