Copper up as strike looms

Gold was lower on Monday, dropping $1 to $634.20/$635.45 per troy ounce. Platinum, however, was up by $9 to $1,229/$1,233 per troy ounce after the chief executive of Anglo Platinum said that while prices probably won’t rise as much in the next year as they have in the past year, they are fairly sure to stay at current levels.

Copper prices on the London Metal Exchange were up 3 percent to $7,950 per tonne after workers at Chile’s Escondida mine voted last week to strike on August 7 if talks do not bring a resolution to the contract dispute there. In the absence of an agreement, 2,000 workers will stop work at the mine, which produced 8.5 percent of the world’s copper last year.