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Copper rises towards 8-year highs as stimulus cheers markets
Copper prices rose on Thursday as the prospect of bigger U.S. economic stimulus lifted Wall Street stocks to record highs, but a firmer dollar and a coronavirus outbreak in China, the biggest metals consumer, threatened the rally. Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was up 0.7% at $8,065 a tonne at 1703 GMT, a little below last week’s peak of $8,238, the highest since February 2013. Booming industrial output in China, government and central bank stimulus and buying by speculators betting on price rises drove the metal used in power and construction up 26% last year. But a rebound in the dollar this ... (full story)