LONDON- Copper prices slid on Friday on weak trade data from top metals consumer China, selling by miners and as investors reduced positions amid volatile changes in US tariff policy.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) dropped 1.7 percent to $9,572 a metric ton, while US Comex copper futures lost 2.6 percent to $4.68 a lb.
LME copper touched its highest in four months on Thursday at $9,739 a ton on a weak dollar and after US President Donald Trump relaxed his tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
The upbeat sentiment carried over to Asian trading on the Shanghai Futures Exchange on Friday, where copper hit a five-month peak, but it pared gains to end the session up 0.3 percent.
Prices pulled back on fresh worries about the world’s second-largest economy after data showed Chinese imports unexpectedly shrank over January-February, while exports lost momentum and China’s trade surplus with the United States grew.
In addition, China’s unwrought copper imports declined by 7.2 percent year-on-year to 837,000 metric tons in the same period.
