Grain Futures Tick Lower

As for the metals, prices for copper contracts were rising 5 cents at $3.58 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Falling inventories and supply worries associated with possible work stoppages in Peru were the driving factors, says Edward Meir, an analyst at commodity broker Man Financial.

Action in the precious metals was relatively subdued on the Comex, with gold futures roughly flat at $682 an ounce and silver contacts up 2 cents at $13.60 an ounce.

The ETFs that hold bars of the precious metals were down. streetTracks Gold Shares(GLD Quote) were down 0.2% and iShares Silver Trust(SLV Quote) was lower by 0.5%.