Bloomberg reported that copper in Shanghai fell for the second day as a decline in China’s new loan growth in July stoked concern that investment demand for the metal may slow.
The metal declined as much as 2.1% after China’s central bank said that new loans plunged to CNY 355.9 billion less than a quarter of advances in June. Industrial production climbed 10.8% in July, less than economists’ median forecast for an 11.5% increase in a Bloomberg survey.
November delivery copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 1.8% to close at CNY 47,590 per tonne. The contract declined 0.4% recently.
3 month delivery copper on the London Metal Exchange dropped 1% to USD 5,982 per tonne. Copper for September delivery in New York declined 0.7% at USD 2.72 per pound.
Mr Tian Gangfeng analyst at Haitong Futures Company said that “A decline in the July lending figure may spark concerns in the Shanghai copper market, pressuring the market to have a correction after the recent rally.”
Customs said that still, some analysts said the increase in China’s scrap copper imports in July was encouraging. China’s scrap copper imports jumped by 61% to 450,000 tonnes in July from 278,922 tonnes in June.
Analysts at Investec Bank said in a report that “Imports of scrap surged by two-thirds and domestic production of refined copper products continued to climb, showing that demand from the world’s top consumer of the metal stayed hot in the summer.”
Ms Jing Ulrich chairwoman for China equities at JPMorgan Chase & Company said that rising imports of scrap and an increase in July domestic copper output to 336,000 tonnes suggested that demand remained relatively strong.
Among other LME traded metals, aluminum fell 1.5% to USD 1,901 per tonne, zinc was down 0.9% at USD 1,799 per tonne and nickel declined 1.5% to USD 19,200 per tonne. Lead slumped 2.5% to USD 1,755 per tonne and tin dropped 1.2% to USD 14,475 per tonne at 3:38 PM in Singapore.
(Sourced from Bloomberg)
