Stronger dollar sends metals prices lower

Copper prices were lower Thursday, hurt by a stronger dollar and yesterday’s report from the Institute for Supply Management, which showed an unexpected decline to 46.4 in July of its services index, indicating that the services sector remains in contraction.

September copper was 6 cents lower to $2.75 per pound in New York trade while three-month copper dropped nearly 3 percent to $6,029.50 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange.

Prices for other base metals also declined on the session.

Meanwhile, precious metals also declined on the strengthening dollar, which was up after the Labor Department reported that there were fewer new jobless claims filed in the US last week.

With the stronger dollar, demand for gold and other precious metals as an alternate investment declined.

December gold was down $3 to $963.30 per troy ounce while September silver fell 11 cents to $14.65 per troy ounce and October platinum dropped $29.70 to $1,263.40 per troy ounce.