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Comex copper futures end lower amid light selling

NEW YORK: Comex copper futures ended lower after meagre attempts to test some further upside moves.

"It was a local market," said one Comex trader.

"I think the guys were caught a little bit long and volume was very, very low," he added. Final volume was estimated at 9,000 lots.

Active March ended off 0.45 cent at 84.50 cents a lb after trading 84.45 to 85.30 cents. February closed 0.30 lower at 84.30 cents and May settled down 0.40 at 85.55 cents.

"We built a nice base," said Scott Meyers, technical analyst at Pioneer Futures. "We did not quite fill that gap between 81.10-81.25. We did have a slight double top between yesterday and today at 85.20 and the market is poised to work itself a little bit higher."

On a technical basis, support is now pegged at 83.80 cents with good resistance at 85.30 cents, the morning high, in the March contract.

Meyers contended that a settlement above 85.95 could provide enough impetus for prices to test 86.70.

The market rallied on Thursday amid good fund interest and traders had expected further gains to be extended Friday. "We were all kind of shocked after yesterday's action. We all thought we were going to have bit of a wild day but maybe they'll wait for next week," said a floor trader.

Thursday, March copper jumped 3.00 cents before ending at 84.95 cents for a 2.75 cent gain.

Open interest in the March contract rose 283 lots to 36,829 lots while May was off 76 lots to 13,618.

LME copper lost steam on its attempt to nudge higher, instead taking a consolidation approach. The three months price closed off $7 at $1,871 a tonne.

LME stocks were down 1,375 tonnes to 801,150 tonnes on Friday while Comex stocks were off 610 short tons at 95,387 tons on Thursday.

The nine-day relative strength index for March copper, a sign of the strength of its move, slipped slightly to 62.29 from 70.51 on Thursday. -Reuters