Copper May Advance as Economists Project Firm U.S. Employment

Copper may rise in New York before reports projected to indicate a firm job market in the U.S., the world’s second-biggest consumer of the metal.

Figures today probably will show first-time claims for jobless benefits reached a four-year low last week, a Bloomberg News survey of economists showed. A report tomorrow may show payrolls increased by more than 200,000 workers for a fourth month, according to a separate survey.

“There is a significant probability that industrial metals will rebound soon,” Tobias Merath, head of commodity research at Credit Suisse Group AG’s private-banking unit, wrote in a report. “U.S. nonfarm payrolls could be a trigger for this.”

Copper for May delivery added 0.3 percent to $3.802 a pound by 8:17 a.m. on the Comex in New York after sliding the most since Dec. 14 yesterday. The three-month contract rose 0.3 percent to $8,375 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange

Markets reopened today in China, the world’s largest copper consumer, after closing for a holiday for the prior three sessions. Economic figures next week “should provide information about the extent to which the Chinese central bank could implement further measures to loosen monetary policy,” Commerzbank AG analyst Daniel Briesemann said in a report.

China is “almost guaranteed” to cut either interest rates or reserve requirement ratios for banks in April, Dariusz Kowalczyk, a Hong Kong-based strategist at Credit Agricole CIB, said in a Bloomberg television interview yesterday.

Copper stockpiles monitored by the LME rose 2 percent, the most since Jan. 25, 2011, to 264,775 tons, daily exchange figures showed. That capped a second weekly gain.