The three-month copper price on the London Metal Exchange was higher at the close of trading on Thursday July 9, continuing to test levels last seen in January despite a volatile forward curve, while nickel lost ground into the afternoon despite high turnover across the base-metals complex.
Copper's outright price on the LME closed at $6,300 per tonne on Thursday afternoon, improving from an intraday low of $6,246 per tonne, while turnover was at its highest since June 16 at more than 22,000 lots exchanged by the close.Yet LME copper's forward spreads continued to flip between contango and backwardation, with supply concerns out of Chile - the world's top copper producer - prompting forward-buying with market participants looking to hedge against the supply risk.As a result, total open interest on the LME for copper spiked to 383,887 total positions overnight,...