Copper prices gain

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LONDON- Copper prices rose in London on Friday as the dollar continued to weaken after US jobs data, offsetting the bearish effect from higher metal inventories in exchange-registered warehouses.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.4 percent  at $8,173 per metric ton. The metal is up 0.9 percent  so far this week, heading for a second week of gains.

The dollar fell to its lowest since September after data showed the world’s largest economy created fewer jobs than expected last month, reinforcing expectations that the Federal Reserve is likely to pause hiking interest rates again at the December meeting.

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“The dollar has been under pressure and thus helped with the improvement for the importer countries’ purchasing power, which support copper prices,” Alastair Munro at broker Marex said in a note.

Copper, used in power and construction, is still down 2.4 percent  so far this year due to the patchy post-pandemic recovery of demand in China, the world’s largest metals consumer.

“Disappointing manufacturing PMI data from China (released earlier this week) have set lower expectations for the base metals complex,” said Nitesh Shah, commodity strategist at WisdomTree.

Copper stocks in LME-registered warehouses increased after a recent decline, daily data showed, while copper inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 11.3 percent  this week.

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