Copper prices jumped to a one-week high today, after encouraging housing data from the US in the previous session helped bolster sentiment in financial markets, while also benefiting from a weaker US dollar.
 
Builders in the US, the world’s second-biggest copper buyer, began work on the most homes in more than a year, a sign that the market may be stabilising heading into 2012, and that the demand for the red metal will increase. The metal also advanced as European leaders pledged to lend €150 billion to the International Monetary Fund to fight the region’s debt crisis. Meanwhile, adding support to copper today was much-better-than-expected demand from eurozone banks for the ECB’s first ever offer of three-year loans, which aim to stem the spread of the debt crisis.
 
The final figure showed that the ECB lent €489 billion for three years. Separately, copper prices jumped after data showed that China's refined copper imports (the world’s biggest copper consumer) grew 48% in November from a year earlier to reach their highest level in nearly two-and-a-half years. However, as the eurozone debt crisis persists, and leaders fail to come up with a comprehensive solution to stem the crisis, sentiment towards the red-metal could remain fragile towards the end of the year. Copper futures for March delivery gained nearly 1% by midday today and touched a weekly high of $3.437 per pound.