(RTTNews) - Copper climbed for the second straight day on Friday in U.S. trading and reached a weekly. July copper climbed to $3.83, 9 cents for the day. The red metal moved as high as $3.8595.
Positive housing data helped push the metal higher. The Department of Commerce report showed that housing starts jumped 8.2 percent to an annual rate of 1.032 million units in April from the revised March rate of 954,000 units. Economists had expected starts to edge down to 940,000 units from the 947,000 unit rate originally reported for the previous months. Copper generally moves with housing data because the red metal is heavily used in construction.
The price of copper reversed its course on Thursday and climbed higher. Copper for July settlement closed at $3.77, up 6 cents on the session. The red metal moved nearly 12 cents ahead of Wednesday's lows.
Copper extended its recent slump on Wednesday and reached its lowest mark in 2 1/2 weeks. The red metal closed down 5 cents a pound at $3.68. The metal finished the session higher for the first time in five sessions on Monday, but erased most of its gains with a drop on Tuesday. Overall, copper closed lower for a sixth time in seven sessions.
On Friday, traders also considered the release of a report showing that US consumer sentiment dropped to its lowest since 1980. The University of Michigan/Reuters consumer sentiment number came in lower than expected at 59.5, compared 62.6 in April.
The price of gold surged higher for the second straight session and moved to its highest level in more than three weeks. June gold closed at $899.90, up $19.90 for the session. The precious metal touched as high as $905.60 in mid-day trading.
Gold closed the volatile week up $14.10 an ounce. The metal added to its gains from Thursday, when it added $13.50 on the session. Prices had dropped to a 12-day low on Wednesday and closed down $3.10 on the day. Bullion plunged by $20.90 on Tuesday. Last week, the metal added $27.80 an ounce after seeing weakness in the previous week.
Crude oil closed above the $126 a barrel mark on Friday and again added to its record levels. Light sweet crude closed at $126.29, up $2.17 on the day. Oil touched a record high of $127.82 in the early going before easing back slightly. On Friday, Goldman Sachs boosted its forecast to $141 a barrel in the second half of this year.
Amid choppy trading, oil closed the week up by 33 cents after adding more than $10 last week. Crude closed modestly lower on Thursday after hitting a weekly low earlier in the session and fell on Wednesday. Trading took place earlier in the week as the Energy Information Administration revealed that crude oil inventories increased by 176,000 barrels to 325.8 million barrels. Analyst predicted an increase of about 2 million barrels.
For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com
Copyright(c) 2008 RealTimeTraders.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved
