Copper gains on existing home sales data

Copper prices ranged from little changed to a bit higher Thursday after good news on housing.

Prices were down early in the session, but were up again on new data from the National Association of Realtors showing that existing home sales were up 3.6 percent in June, sending the unsold inventory of homes down to 3.8 million.

One of the biggest uses for copper is in home construction.

Prices for September copper were little changed at $2.53 per pound in New York trade, while three-month copper added $30 to $5,530 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange.

The gains came even though LME copper inventories added 3,225 tonnes to 271,725 tonnes on the session.

Worries about supply disruptions at mines in Indonesia and Chile also pushed prices higher.

Other base metals prices were also higher.

Gold, meanwhile, was higher on a weaker dollar, which made gold look like a more secure investment.

August gold was up $1.50 to $954.80 per troy ounce after going as high as $956.90 earlier in the New York session, while September silver added 7 cents to $13.77 per troy ounce and October platinum gained $12.30 to $1,188 per tonne.