Local futures split, aluminum prices down after stockpiling

Chinese commodity futures were mixed last week despite the surging US stock market.

The most traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE), for July delivery, rose 0.72 percent last week to close Friday at 57,130 yuan ($9,194) per ton.

The contract outpaced the benchmark three-month copper contract on the London Metal Exchange (LME), which ticked up 0.1 percent to finish the week at $7,758.50 per ton.

Mixed economic data out of the US led to LME copper's 0.6 percent fall late Friday, erasing most of the week's gains and setting the stage for a drop in SHFE copper Monday.

Optimism over a better-than-expected rise in US industrial production was offset by falling consumer sentiment, the largest increase in consumer prices in four years in February and a slowdown in manufacturing growth in New York State, Reuters reported Friday.

Chinese base metals were mixed, with the SHFE June aluminum contract falling 1 percent last week to close at 14,840 yuan per ton. Aluminum found support earlier in the week from rising global crude oil prices and reports that China would buy 300,000 tons of the metal for a strategic stockpile, according to analysts from the Australian bank ANZ.

Reuters reported that the Chinese government bought the aluminum Friday. China is the largest producer and consumer of the metal in the world.  Still, a supply surplus kept prices in check.

Aluminum stocks at warehouses monitored by the SHFE rose 2.1 percent last week, Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, the June SHFE gold contract added 0.9 percent last week, in line with US gold futures.

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