METALS-Copper and aluminium climb as speculative rally continues

LONDON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Copper rose on Wednesday while aluminium and zinc notched multi-year highs after the U.S. dollar slid to a four-year low and speculative investors continued to pile in with bullish bets on industrial metals.

Benchmark three-month copper CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.6% at $13,088 a metric ton at 1700 GMT. Aluminium CMAL3 added 1.6% to $3,258, touching its highest since April 2022, and zinc CMZN3 was up 0.5% at $3,366.50 after striking its highest since January 2023.

The dollar =USD steadied after hitting its lowest since February 2022 on Tuesday. A weak dollar makes dollar-denominated metals more affordable for those holding other currencies and can boost demand.

Analysts at brokerage Sucden Financial said on a webinar on Wednesday that the rally in base metals was being driven by macro positioning rather than metals-specific fundamentals.

"What we've been seeing with the specs in gold and silver, they're all piling into the base metals, too," Sucden's Robert Montefusco said.

The cash LME copper contract was trading at a $95 a ton discount to the three-month forward CMCU0-3 - the steepest discount since August, suggesting little need for near-term metal.

Meanwhile, the Yangshan premium SMM-CUYP-CN, a measure of appetite for copper imports in top metals consumer China, sank to an 18-month low of $20 a ton.

Sucden's head of research, Daria Efanova, said Chinese producers were offloading copper onto the LME to de-risk ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in February, when liquidity is likely to be thin and the market could be even more volatile.

Aluminium's jump came after Goldman Sachs raised its first-half average price forecast to $3,150 a ton, from $2,575, citing low inventories, doubts over power availability for new smelters in Indonesia and robust global demand growth from electric vehicle producers and power grids.

Elsewhere, lead CMPB3 edged down 0.1% to $2,017.50, nickel CMNI3 gained 0.8% to $18,310 and tin CMSN3 climbed 1.9% to $55,905 after touching a record $58,340 on Tuesday.