Copper Heads for Monthly Advance as China, U.S. Economies Grow Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Glenys Sim

Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Copper headed for its ninth monthly gain this year as governments around the world ramped up stimulus spending to lift their economies out of the worst postwar recession.

The metal used in construction and automobiles is heading for its best year in more than two decades as government incentives spurred manufacturing and raw materials purchases. The availability of credit due to record lending growth in China, as well as a weaker dollar, helped push copper imports to record levels.

“There was a long list of economic releases that fell into the positive category, providing a fillip to commodity markets,” David Moore, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said in an e-mail today. “Base metals prices drew strength from the positive economic data flow and also benefited from a renewed softening of the U.S. dollar.”

Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange slipped 0.5 percent to ,631.25 a metric ton at 9:37 a.m. Singapore time, up 7.7 percent this month, the ninth monthly gain this year. The metal has rallied 116 percent this year, the most since at least 1987, according to Bloomberg data.

January-delivery copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange jumped as much as 3 percent to 51,540 yuan (,548) a ton, before trading at 51,310 yuan. The metal has risen in nine of the past 10 months, more than doubling, and is heading for its best year since at least 2000.

The U.S. economy returned to growth in the third quarter after a yearlong contraction, expanding at a 3.5 percent pace from July through September, the U.S. Commerce Department said yesterday, marking the end of the deepest recession in seven decades.

China’s economy expanded at the fastest pace in a year, by 8.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics in Beijing said Oct. 22. China and the U.S. are the world’s two largest copper users.

Among other LME-traded metals, aluminum was unchanged at ,952 a ton and nickel was little changed at ,700 a ton. Zinc dropped 1 percent to ,248 a ton, lead fell 0.6 percent to ,350 a ton, while tin hadn’t traded as of 9:42 a.m. in Singapore.

To contact the reporter for this story: Glenys Sim in Singapore at