The base metals were all flying high on Thursday. Copper was flat until just after the New York open, but then took off and rose nearly unbroken straight through the day to finish barely off its intraday highs at $2.2733/lb., up nearly 9 cents.

Nickel followed copper closely, nearly ending its intraday high at $6.5726/lb., up 33 cents. Zinc’s path, too, was similar, as it closed at $0.7059/lb., up almost 3 cents. Aluminum went vertical in the afternoon, adding 5½ cents, to $0.6464/lb., while lead completed the comeback day by tacking on nearly 3¼ cents, to $0.748/lb.

The rout suffered by the base metals on Wednesday was completely turned around a day later, as copper led the sector in a retracement that erased all of their losses, and then some.

“Copper was driven higher by outside market support — renewed dollar weakness, rally in crude oil futures, and a quietly higher stock market,” said Rob Kurzatkowski, futures analyst with OptionsXpress in Chicago.

Analysts also cited the encouraging jobless benefits claims report, which served to rekindle some optimism about the economy. “We are continuing to see the labor market show some signs of life,” Kurzatkowski said. “[Wednesday’s] ADP number was worse than expected and more importantly there was a downward revision to last month’s figure, but then we saw some sense of normalcy in [Thursday’s] initial claims numbers coming in pretty much in line with expectations, so that kind of eased some of the worries.”

Stockpile data also did their part to provide support. Copper inventories monitored by the LME fell by another 3,325 metric tons yesterday, to 303,200 tons.

But Freeport-McMoRan provided a little rain for the parade. The company said it sees no sign of recovery in the developed world that would lead to a restart of its idled U.S. copper operations, despite a pick-up in Chinese buying.

Source: Base Metals Also Erase Wednesday Losses