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$2.9429 - Comex Copper Declines As Recent Support Fades

NEW YORK, Jun 17, 2010 (Dow Jones Commodities News via Comtex) --

By Matt Whittaker

Copper futures are pulling back from the key $3 level as the metal's recent bounce continues to fade.

The most actively traded contract, for September delivery, was recently down 6.55 cents, or 2.2%, at $2.9480 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

"It's falling away from the pocket of resistance from $3 to $3.02," said Sterling Smith, an analyst with Country Hedging in Inver Grove Heights, Minn. "We're pretty clearly in a bearish phase."

Market participants have been disapointed, he said, with a lack of Chinese buying as traders there return to work. Markets were closed over the past three days for the country's annual Dragon Boat festival.

In the past few sessions, copper prices have recovered from multi-month lows in the $2.70s as sentiment about the global economy has improved, bolstering the demand outlook for the industrial metal.

But that appears to be fading, as the metal has been unable to push much above $3 a pound.

Now, participants are beginning to book profits from the recent gains, Smith said.

In another indication of demand, inventories of copper stored in London Metal Exchange-monitored warehouses rose 1,025 metric tons Thursday, leaving them at 460,175. The most-recent Comex inventory data, released late Wednesday afternoon, were unchanged at 101,925 short tons.

-By Matt Whittaker, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2139; [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

06-17-10 0952ET

http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/9/0/141224309.html