£6,000 barrier broken again by copper on LME

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Copper was up again yesterday as the market started to ignore the euro crisis and US fears in favour of market fundamentals.

The metal settled at $9,694 for three month trading compared to $9,626 on Friday. With a strengthening pound against the dollar, the metal was valued at £6,028 after dropping to £5,969 on Friday.

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Aluminium finished at $2,474 down from the $2,483 seen on Friday. However, due to the stronger pound, its sterling price remained unchanged at £1,539.

Lead closed at $2,736 (£1,701) compared to $2,663 (£1,651) on Friday. Nickel settled at $23,770 (£14,783) down from the $24,050 (£14,913) of Friday.

Tin finished trading at $27,145 (£16,882) down from Friday’s $27,300 (£16,929). Zinc was at $2,429 (£1,510) up from Friday’s $2,346 (£1,472).

Steel was unchanged at $575 (£375).

As the euro crisis is set to come to a head this week with a summit between leaders to solve the crisis afflicting Greece, Italy and other eurozone nations, the markets seemed to prefer looking at metals as a safer haven as well as seeing stronger demand emerging from Asia. Even fears of a potential US default unless Congress agrees to extend the US deficit, did not seem to affect the market yesterday.

But this could be temporary in the case of copper. Natixis analyst Nic Brown said: “We wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that base metals have now rallied, buying from China dries up a little bit.”