London copper prices slid for a second session on Monday with the market under pressure from concerns over slowing factory activity in China – the world’s top industrial metals consumer.
FUNDAMENTALS
* Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell 0.1 percent to $6,133 a tonne by 0113 GMT.
* China’s factory activity shrank by the most in almost three years in January as new orders slumped further and output fell, a private survey showed, reinforcing fears that a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy is deepening.
* Expectations of a trade deal between Washington and Beijing kept a floor under the market.
* U.S. President Donald Trump said he would meet China’s Xi Jinping soon to try to seal a comprehensive trade deal, citing substantial progress.
* A U.S. Labor Department report on Friday showed nonfarm payrolls jumped by a stronger-than-forecast 304,000 jobs last month, the largest gain since February 2018.
* That report, along with better-than-expected ISM manufacturing activity numbers for January, pointed to underlying strength in the world’s biggest economy.
* Top copper miner Codelco said it had struck a contract deal with the union of supervisors at its Gabriela Mistral mine in northern Chile, averting the threat of a strike.
* The CME Group has reinstated approved status for warranting aluminium produced by United Company Rusal after U.S. sanctions were lifted against the company on Sunday.
