US copper up at open on better-than-expected data

NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - U.S. copper futures pushed higher in early Monday dealings with strong monthly consumption figures from China and better-than-expected U.S. home sales data restoring some market confidence, brokers said.

"The surprise jump in home sales is giving the market a nice boost so far," said one COMEX dealer. "We'll just have to see if we can maintain these gains without London's support."

The London Metal Exchange remained closed on Monday for the Easter Day holiday. Trading will resume on Tuesday.

Copper for May delivery HGK8 was trading up 6.05 cents at $3.6340 a lb by 10:56 a.m. EDT (1456 GMT) on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division, near the upper end of its early $3.5250 to $3.6475 session range.

By 10:00 a.m., 3,929 lots were estimated to have traded.

The pace of existing home sales in the United States rose in February to a 5.03 million-unit annual rate while prices took a record fall, the National Association of Realtors said in a report on Monday.

While February broke a six-month streak of decreasing home sales, it also saw an 8.2 percent decline in median home prices from a year ago. That drop to $195,900 was the sharpest since the trade group began keeping records in 1968.

"To the extent that it is not a decline, it represents a little bit of a positive for the U.S. housing market," said Brian Dolan, chief currency strategist at FOREX.COM in Bedminster, New Jersey. "It's much too soon to say that the housing market has reached a bottom yet. It's certainly short-term relief for the dollar and overall I think the U.S. outlook."

That slower economic growth outlook in the United States and its potential to affect global demand was a main catalyst for the recent long-liquidation pressures that saw the price of the red metal erase 14 percent of its value in just two weeks.