July copper futures are expected to open floor trading around 2 cents a pound higher Friday, based on electronic activity ahead of the pit session on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Copper rose in London due to the combination of inventory declines and a weaker dollar, traders there said. In other markets that have the potential to impact metals in the short term, the euro is up to $1.3421 from $1.3389 late Thursday afternoon. In screen trading ahead of the pit open, the June S&P 500 futures are up 12.60 points to 919.40. June crude oil is up $1.51 to $58.22 a barrel in overnight activity. A key event Friday morning will be the 8:30 a.m. EDT (1230 GMT) release of April non-farm payrolls. They are expected to fall by 610,000 jobs, while the unemployment rate is forecast to rise to 8.9% from 8.5% in March. March wholesale-trade inventories data is due out at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) and is forecast to fall 1.2%. In New York Thursday, copper sank on profit-taking as participants unloaded long positions ahead of the bank stress-test results later in the day and Friday's payrolls numbers. July copper fell 2.25 cents to settle at $2.1645 a pound. Inventories of copper stored in London Metal Exchange warehouses fell 4,900 metric tons Friday, leaving them at 389,000. The most recent Comex inventory data, released late Thursday afternoon, were steady at 48,056 short tons. Once-a-week data showed a rise of 8,626 metric tons in Shanghai Futures Exchange inventories, leaving the total at 27,690 metric tons.

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