Copper resumes rally, despite stronger USD, weak China data

Copper futures on Comex staged a solid comeback from Friday’s sharp U-turn and resumed its ongoing uptrend on Monday, almost ignoring persistent broad based US dollar strength and weaker-than expected Chinese industrial production and retail sales data.

The Chinese October Industrial Production came in at 6.1% y/y versus expected 6.2%, prior was 6.1%, while retail sales also missed expectations, dropping to 10.0% y/y in Oct versus 10.7% expected and 10.7% last.

On Friday, the red metal scored the highest levels since June 2015 at $ 2.718/ pound, and registered the biggest weekly rally in 35 years, in response to increased hopes on infrastructure growth fuelled by Trump’s victory speech as well as on resurgence of Chinese demand for the metal.

However, copper quickly reversed from multi-month tops on a bout of profit-taking, still managed to gain 9.5% on weekly basis.