April 10 (Reuters) – Copper prices edged up to a more than three-week high on Friday, on track for a weekly gain, even as investors doubted the sustainability of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire and kept a lid on the metal’s advance.
The benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.39% to $12,731 a metric ton as of 0722 GMT, and is set to end the week up more than 3%.
The most-active copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange added 0.57% to close at 98,440 yuan ($14,409.72) a ton, ending the week up 2.14%.
The Shanghai copper hit a more than three-week high at 98,750 yuan a ton earlier this session. The London copper also set a more than three-week high of $12,769.
Investors are closely watching how Saturday’s negotiations between the U.S. and Iran in Pakistan develop after the ceasefire announcement sparked a sharp decline in oil prices and helped to ease immediate fears of a deeper hit to global growth. Iran has cited Israel’s attacks on Lebanon as a key sticking point, while the U.S. has accused Tehran of failing to uphold commitments on oil flows through the strait. Meanwhile, Chinese inflation data showed that factory-gate prices rose in March for the first time in more than three years, suggesting the conflict is already feeding higher costs into the industrial economy.
China’s producer price index rose 0.5% from a year earlier, ending a 41-month run of declines, while producer prices in non-ferrous metal mining and beneficiation jumped 36.4%, and those in non-ferrous smelting and rolling rose 22.4%.
Elsewhere on the LME, aluminium gained 0.73%, nickel added 0.42%, tin advanced 0.13%, zinc dropped 0.24%, and lead dipped 0.23%.
Among other SHFE base metals, aluminium added 0.14%, tin rose 0.54%, zinc dropped 0.69%, lead lost 0.51%, nickel tumbled 0.87%.
($1 = 6.8315 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Dylan Duan and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)
