Nickel rose to the highest in more than a week after a court upheld a ban on exports of unprocessed ore from Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of the mined metal.
Copper futures declined for the third time in four days after a report showed a factory gauge fell to a six-month low in China, the world’s top user of industrial metals.
Copper futures rose for the first time in three sessions in New York after manufacturing grew faster than forecast in the U.S., the world’s second-largest metals consumer.
“The big story for nickel has been the changes that are going on in Indonesia, with the banning of raw material exports,” Mike Dragosits, a commodity strategist at TD Securities in Toronto, said in a telephone interview.
The wholesale price of gold rallied from one-week lows against the Dollar on Thursday morning, but continued to fall for UK and Euro investors, hitting four- and two-month lows respectively.