(Updates prices)
By Pratima Desai
LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - Copper prices dipped on
Monday as disappointment with China's growth target hit
sentiment ahead of U.S. data that could influence the direction
of interest rates and the dollar.
Traders said that U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome
Powell's testimony on Tuesday and Wednesday will also be closely
scrutinised for clues on the outlook for U.S. interest rates and
the dollar.
Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME)
traded 0.5% down at $8,938.50 a tonne by 1700 GMT. It gained
more than 3% last week after a Fed official said he favoured
steady quarter-point increases to interest rates.
"China's growth target wasn't very encouraging for
industrial metals markets," one metals trader said. "Focus this
week will be on Powell and the monthly U.S. jobs report."
Top metals consumer China set a modest target for economic
growth of about 5% this year as it kicked-off the annual session
of its National People's Congress (NPC) on Sunday.
The widely watched U.S. non-farm payrolls data due on Friday
is expected to show 200,000 new jobs were created in February.
"A wide divergence from that 200,000 could change views on
U.S. interest rates," another trader said.
Also weighing on copper were rising inventories .
Stocks in LME-registered warehouses are up more than 10%
since March 1 at 72,400 tonnes. In warehouses monitored by the
Shanghai Futures Exchange socks have fallen in
recent days but are still up more than 340% since late December
at 240,980 tonnes.
Traders say the discount for the cash LME contract over
three-month copper at about $28 a tonne suggests the
market is not worried about supplies on the LME market.
In other metals, aluminium was down 0.8% at
$2,386.50 a tonne, zinc shed 1.3% to $3,038.50, lead slipped 0.2% to $2,114.50, tin fell 1.1% to
$24,480 and nickel was down 0.4% at $24,495.
(Reporting by Pratima Desai
Editing by David Goodman and Kirsten Donovan)
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