LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters): Copper rose on Friday, edging further away from 5-1/2 year lows hit this week, after China's move to boost lending measures helped ease fears about the outlook for demand, but the metal was still heading for its biggest weekly loss since 2011.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange added 1 per cent to trade at $5,684 a tonne at 1036 GMT, its second day of gains following Wednesday's fall that saw the metal dragged its lowest since mid-2009 at $5,353.25 in its biggest one-day per centage drop in more than three years.
Copper found near-term support from news China's central bank will increase its relending quota by 50 billion yuan ($8 billion) this year, stepping up efforts to give targeted support to parts of the economy it sees as lagging.
Also supporting prices, China's top economic planner said there was no crisis in China's property market but the authorities needed to pay attention to continuing price adjustments in the sector.
"Infrastructure projects have been fast-tracked in China and there are other positive comments coming out of there as well, which has helped (lift copper). The falls on Wednesday were clearly overdone and not related to fundamentals," said Robin Bhar, an analyst at Societe Generale.
"The key now is whether the market can retrace back to where we started. There is a lot of pressure simply because we have come down a long way and there is a lot of work to do on the upside."
Copper up for second day
FE Team | Published: January 17, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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