Market and product
Copper, Zinc Retreat as China’s Credit Gauge Plunges
Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange retreated as much as 0.6 percent to $6,919.50 a metric ton, the lowest since June 26, and was at $6,921 by 3:13 p.m. in Hong Kong. The price is down 6 percent, the most among the main six metals on the LME. Zinc dropped 0.9 percent and aluminum lost 0.7 percent, both falling for the first time in three days.
Aggregate financing in July was 273.1 billion ($44.3 billion), the People’s Bank of China said today. That’s well short of the 1.5 trillion yuan median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Factory output rose 9 percent in July, the National Bureau of Statistics said, slower than the 9.2 percent expansion forecast in a separate Bloomberg survey.
“The credit growth was probably the biggest driver of the moves so far” by industrial metals, said Daniel Hynes, an analyst at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “The implications are for tightening conditions, which obviously could have a significant impact on commodity demand.”
Money managers cut their net-long positions in zinc to 85,731 contracts last week from 96,482 contracts, according to LME’s second weekly Commitment of Traders report yesterday.
In New York, futures for September fell 0.5 percent at $3.1375 a pound. The metal for delivery in October lost 1 percent to close at 49,300 yuan ($8,002) a ton in Shanghai.
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