MARKET TALK: LME Copper Struggles As Base Metals Laggard

LME copper is still lagging the rest of the base metals complex and is "obviously finding it hard to adopt its former lead role," says BaseMetals.com. Copper stocks continue to flow into warehouses and this suggests the physical market is not extremely tight, illustrated by the easing in the cash to three months backwardation, BaseMetals notes. "Unless the funds steam into copper again, it is going to be hard to get too bullish until there are some signs of the market tightening up again," BaseMetals adds. LME copper trades last at $7,645/ton, down from $7,730/ton Wednesday.