London copper prices edged upwards for a second session in early Asian trade on Tuesday, tracking gains in equity markets and as inventories of the metal continued to fall.
Copper stocks in London Metal Exchange-monitored warehouses MCU-STOCKS have slumped by 57.5% since late August and are currently at 142,900 tonnes, the lowest since March 2019.
FUNDAMENTALS
* COPPER: Three-month copper on the LME rose 0.4% to $6,161 a tonne by 0136 GMT, extending a 0.2% gain from the previous session. The most-traded March copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange climbed 0.3% to 48,960 yuan ($7,019.46) a tonne.
* GOLDMAN: Investment bank Goldman Sachs said on Monday it remained bullish on copper because smelters were suffering from depressed margins.
* FIRST QUANTUM: Canada’s First Quantum Minerals Ltd fell as much as nearly 4% on Monday after the copper miner said it had adopted a poison pill takeover defense, nearly a month after Jiangxi Copper<0358.HK< agreed to pay $1.1 billion to become the miner’s largest shareholder.
* MINMETALS: China Minmetals Corp said on Monday its net profit rose by 28.9% in 2019 and annual revenue increased by 13.4%, exceeding 600 billion yuan ($86.04 billion) for the first time, although its nickel and zinc resources fell.
* OTHER METALS: The LME complex was mixed, with aluminium and zinc both down 0.3% and nickel slipping 0.1%. Lead added 0.1% and tin nudged up 0.2%.
* OIL: Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann said on Monday a jump in oil prices since the United States killed Iranian general Qassem Soleimani would push up miners’ costs and this was leaving base metals relatively resilient to increased geopolitical tension.
