Commodity Blog

Futures for copper gained today as Chinese stocks rallied following the previous crash. The Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index climbed 3.5 percent during the Wednesday’s trading session while the index had sunk more than 8 percent on Monday. China has big influence on copper as the nation is the world’s biggest consumer of the industrial metal. September contract for delivery of copper gained 0.5 percent to $2.4145 per pound as of 10:00 GMT on COMEX today.

Meanwhile, gold was little changed as traders wait for the end of the Federal Reserve’s two-day meeting and the release of a policy statement. While market participants do not expect any changes to the monetary policy, they hope for the statement to give hints about timing of the possible interest rate hike. It is likely for gold to drop after the end of the gathering, especially if Fed’s comments promise a rate lift-off in September, but for now market participants are reluctant to risk, betting on the metal one way or the other. As a result, futures for delivery of bullion in December were flat at $1,096.1 today.

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