Commodities for Thursday, June 27, 1985 : Copper Futures Prices Fall

Copper prices fell Thursday on the Commodity Exchange in New York for the fourth straight session.

Copper has fallen 2 cents a pound this week and approached life-of-contract lows Thursday.

Steve Chronowitz, director of commodity research in New York with Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., said a combination of factors, including supply and demand and trends on price charts, has contributed to the weakness.

“The problem is that we’re in a very slack demand season,” Chronowitz said. “The copper market rarely does anything exciting in the summer and often slides from early summer into fall.”

Chronowitz also noted that the price of aluminum, which can be substituted for some uses of copper, is about 14-cents-a-pound cheaper than copper.

“You would really need a boom in housing and autos to pick copper out of the doldrums,” he said.

Copper settled 0.40 cent to 0.70 cent lower with the contract for delivery in July at 57.95 cents a pound.