BLBG:Copper Climbs Before Chilean Miners Give Start Date for Strike
Copper rose in London as some investors bought the metal to close out bets on lower prices before miners in Chile, the world’s biggest producer, say when a strike will start.
The date will be announced in Santiago, according to a union representing workers at state-owned Codelco. Prices also gained on speculation about more Federal Reserve asset buying, or quantitative easing, after figures on April 5 showed hiring in the U.S. was weaker in March than estimated by analysts. That helped U.S. equities to rebound late in the prior session.
“The Chile strike in the case of copper and the late bounce on stock markets Friday in expectation of QE continuing just sparked short-covering,” Andrew Silver, a broker at Triland Metals Ltd. in London, said by e-mail today. He also cited signs of Chinese buying capitalizing on lower prices.
Copper for delivery in three months added 1 percent to $7,478 a metric ton by 10:11 a.m. on the London Metal Exchange. Prices slid 4.5 percent in the prior three weeks. Copper for delivery in May rose 0.8 percent to $3.3705 a pound on the Comex in New York.
A port strike in Chile that curbed copper exports was set to end April 5, union official Enrique Solar said that day.
Money managers increased their net-short position, or wagers on falling copper prices, to a record 38,951 Comex futures and options contracts as of April 2 from a week earlier, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The number of LME copper futures outstanding, or open interest, advanced 3.2 percent in the week ended April 4 as prices fell 1.3 percent, indicating new short positions.
Copper stockpiles monitored by the LME fell after 35 sessions of increases, slipping 200 tons to 579,400 tons, daily exchange figures showed. Orders to remove copper from warehouses expanded for a sixth day to a record 147,325 tons.
Nickel for delivery in three months on the LME rose 1.5 percent to $16,190 a ton. Inventories climbed to a record 166,866 tons on deliveries in Johor, Malaysia. Financing transactions are helping to absorb a glut of the metal, according to Macquarie Group Ltd.
Lead, aluminum, tin and zinc gained in London.
To contact the reporter on this story: Agnieszka Troszkiewicz in London at atroszkiewic@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
