Copper rose on Wednesday as soft U.S. data boosted expectations of a December Federal Reserve interest rate cut, while a senior Chinese industry official flagged halted smelting projects and warned against ultra-low processing fees.
The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed daytime trading up 0.20% at 86,590 yuan ($12,230.05) per metric ton.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.46% at $10,868 a ton, as of 0703 GMT.
The market found fresh support as September economic data from the United States, released on Tuesday and delayed due to a government shutdown, showed cooling retail sales and inflation, supporting a December rate cut by the Fed.
U.S. retail sales rose 0.2% in September, missing the 0.4% forecast, Commerce Department data showed.
Vice President of China’s Nonferrous Metals Industry Chen Xuesen warned against negative and zero treatment fees for copper concentrate on Wednesday in a keynote speech at World Copper Conference Asia 2025, saying the association is firmly against free and negative processing of the material.
He also noted that China has halted the building of around 2 million tons of new smelting capacity.
Among other SHFE base metals, nickel climbed 0.97%, tin ticked 0.17% higher, lead was unchanged, and aluminium as well as zinc were little changed.
Elsewhere among LME metals, zinc gained 0.41%, zinc added 0.52%, lead rose 0.25%, tin was up 0.39%, and nickel was the only London metal posted loss, down 0.11%.
Source: Reuters
