July copper futures are expected to open floor trading around 1/2 cent a pound lower Thursday, based on electronic activity ahead of the pit session on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. In other markets that have the potential to impact metals in the short term, the euro is down slightly to $1.3321 from $1.3332 Wednesday. In screen trading ahead of the pit open, the June S&P 500 futures are up 5.60 points to 922.80. June crude oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange is up $1.51 to $57.85 a barrel. U.S. economic data due Thursday at 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) include first-time weekly jobless claims, forecast to be up 4,000 at 635,000, and first-quarter non-farm productivity and unit labor costs, forecast to be up 0.3% and 2.8%, respectively. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is scheduled to speak on banking supervision at a Chicago Fed banking conference at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT), and the results of U.S. bank stress tests are expected Thursday afternoon. In New York Wednesday, copper futures settled sharply higher, with support from Chilean strike news adding to help from stronger-than-expected private payrolls numbers. July copper rose 10.45 cents, or more than 5%, to settle at $2.1870 a pound. Inventories of copper stored in London Metal Exchange warehouses fell 8,250 metric tons Thursday, leaving them at 393,900. The most recent Comex inventory data, released late Wednesday afternoon, were steady at 48,056 short tons.

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