Copper Rebounds on Bets Demand to Increase After Price Slump

By Millie Munshi

Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Copper rose, rebounding from the lowest price since January 2006, on speculation that a plunge in the past five months may encourage buyers to step up purchases as mine disruptions threaten supply.

Workers demanding higher wages at Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the world's biggest publicly traded producer, threatened to resume a strike at a mine in Peru next week. Copper has lost almost half its value from a record in May on concern that slowing global growth will erode demand.

``Copper has gone lower than I thought it would, and it has fallen very quickly,'' said Matthew Zeman, a trader at LaSalle Futures Group in Chicago. ``There has been a lot of liquidation already, so a lot of people have hit the sidelines now and are trying to figure out the next move.''

Copper futures for December delivery rose 9.4 cents, or 4.5 percent, to $2.1795 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Yesterday, the metal touched $2.0405, the lowest for a most-active contract since Jan. 6, 2006. The price reached a record $4.2605 on May 5.

Union members have gone on strike twice this year at Freeport's Cerro Verde, the third-largest copper mine in Peru. Leoncio Amudio, the general secretary of the mine's union, said on Oct. 15 that workers are pressing for an 11 percent wage increase.

Copper also rose as gains in global equity markets renewed investor confidence. Industrial metals have the highest correlation of all commodities to shares, according to Deutsche Bank AG.

``The stock market rally carried on into this morning and helped to boost metals prices,'' Mike Rapson, an analyst at MF Global Ltd. in New York, said in a report.

Weaker Demand

This week, copper climbed 1.6 percent, ending a four-week slide that drove prices down 33 percent.

Last month, building started on the fewest U.S. single- family homes in 26 years, dropping 12 percent from August to a 544,000 annual rate, the Commerce Department said today. Builders are the biggest users of copper, accounting for about 46 percent of demand.

``The numbers were lousy, and it shows that there won't be a turnaround in housing anytime soon,'' Zeman said. ``Copper will continue to suffer until we stop seeing all of this extremely lousy economic data.''

On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months rose $160, or 3.4 percent, to $4,810 a metric ton ($2.18 a pound).

JPMorgan Securities Ltd. this week forecast 2009 copper prices will average 30 percent lower than an August estimate, citing slowing global growth.

The metal will average $4,888 a ton next year, London-based analyst Michael Jansen said in a report. That compared with the earlier estimate of $6,950.

To contact the reporter on this story: Millie Munshi in New York at mmunshi@bloomberg.net.