Copper extends fall after poor US job data

Copper extended losses yesterday after poor US jobs data released for August fuelled concerns about the health of the world's top economy while the threat of kinks in a constrained supply pipeline provided a floor for prices. Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange traded at $9,025 (Dh33,150) a tonne at 1313 GMT, down 1.4 per cent from a close at $9,148 per tonne and the lowest since Monday. "People were expecting a bad number — but maybe not quite so bad a figure — so you had this knee-jerk sell-off," analyst Leon Westgate at Standard Bank said. "It continues to paint a pretty ugly picture in terms of some of the US economic health, and follows on from poor European data yesterday. It's not a fantastic backdrop for base metals," he added. The poor US jobs reports raises the chance that the US Federal Reserve may embrace further easing measures, but this is expected to give only a brief lift to metals prices, if at all, analysts said.