Copper futures on the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange inched up Friday, looking to cap a week in which the market has risen every day. September, the active contract, was trading at 318.00 cents/lb, up 1.55 cents from Thursday's settlement, at 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT). The US dollar strengthened from the lower $1.29 level against the euro to the lower $1.28 level. Copper stocks in London Metal Exchange-registered warehouses broke a recent trend of falling by increasing 3,125 mt to 419,650 mt. "Metals extended their gains into a fourth day on Thursday, with copper rallying to its highest level in more than two months," MF Global said in a report. "However, some of the gains faded by late in the session as a number of metals ran into key resistance points. In copper's case, prices backed off after hitting resistance of $7,050." MF Global said it expects to see further gains later in the day in most markets, including metals, as results of the European bank stress tests get released. Stocks in Shanghai fell this past week, it said, and are now at the lowest they have been since January. "A more risk-friendly environment together with improved sentiment on the back of positive macro data flow and continued recovery in fundamentals has supported robust price gains across the base metals," Barclays Capital said. "Most of the metals are back to their early May highs. Whether these gains are short-covering ahead of the results of the European bank stress tests (to be released later today) or new longs as part of the more optimistic sentiment, remains to be seen."

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