By Anna Stablum
Jan. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Copper may rise in London on speculation demand from China, the world’s biggest consumer, will remain steady even as the country’s central bank moves to curb bank-lending growth, a survey showed.
Eight of 15 analysts, investors and traders surveyed by Bloomberg, or 53 percent, said copper would gain next week. Six predicted lower prices and one expected little change.
Prices dropped yesterday on the London Metal Exchange after China’s central bank sold three-month bills at a higher interest rate for the first time in 19 weeks. Record imports into the Asian nation in last year’s first half helped copper prices to more than double for 2009, the biggest annual gain in more than two decades.
“Copper is likely to rise next week on continued fund buying, spurred by optimism about the outlook for China,” said Dan Smith, an analyst at Standard Chartered Plc in London.
Copper for three-month delivery was up 2.4 percent for this week at $7,554 a metric ton at 5 p.m. yesterday on the LME.
The red bars on the attached chart are derived by subtracting the bearish forecasts from the bullish estimates, with readings below zero signaling the majority of respondents expecting a decline. The green line shows the copper price. The data shown are as of Jan. 1.
The weekly copper survey has forecast prices accurately in 33 of the past 71 weeks, or 46 percent of the time.
This week’s survey results: Bullish: 8 Bearish: 6 Neutral: 1
To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Stablum in London at astablum@bloomberg.net
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