Updates prices
By Polina Devitt
LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Copper prices edged up on Friday from a five-week low hit in the previous session as the U.S. dollar retreated from its two-year high, though concerns about demand prospects kept the metal on track for a second consecutive weekly decline.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.6% at $8,935.50 per metric ton by 1724 GMT.
Copper, used in power and construction, is down 19.5% since May when a fund buying drove the price to a record high above $11,100.
The focus towards the end of 2024 turned to a robust U.S. currency — which makes dollar-priced metals more expensive for other currency holders — expectations of higher-for-longer U.S. interest rates, disappointment over the scale of economic stimulus in top consumer China, and the prospect of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump imposing import tariffs.
All these factors will remain headwinds for the growth-dependent industrial metals as they enter 2025, keeping prospects for demand growth modest, said Natalie Scott-Gray, senior metals analyst at StoneX.
Copper and other metals such as zinc may find support from the supply side as challenge the profitability of in 2025, though this factor will still be limited by modest demand, she added.
So far, Peru said it its 2025 copper production to remain flat for the third straight year. Copper and zinc inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange this week and are currently at the lowest since February.
Meanwhile, LME aluminium gained 1.2% to $2,536.50 a ton, zinc added 0.2% to $2,972.50, lead climbed 0.4% to $1,978 and tin rose 1.0% to $28,660.
Nickel was up 1.5% at $15,340 after hitting a four-year low of $15,065. The market is on track for the third year of surplus in 2024, StoneX said, due to higher production in Indonesia.
(Reporting by Polina Devitt in London; additional reporting by Violet Li;
Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Alan Barona)
((polina.devitt@thomsonreuters.com [polina.devitt@thomsonreuters.com]; Reuters Messaging: polina.devitt.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net [rm://polina.devitt.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net/]))
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