Copper prices fell Thursday, as a stronger dollar trounced better-than-expected U.S. economic growth. Copper for December delivery, the most actively traded contract, was recently down 2% at $3.0430 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The U.S. Dollar Index was up 0.1% at 86.055, a three-week high. A stronger greenback weighs on copper and other precious metals, which are priced in dollars and become more expensive to foreign buyers when the buck strengthens.

Early Thursday, the Commerce Department said the U.S. economy grew 3.5% in the third quarter, beating economists’ estimates of a 3.1% pace. A stronger U.S. recovery is good for copper, which is widely used in manufacturing and sensitive to economic data. The U.S. is the second largest copper consuming country, after China.

“Copper is trying to figure out what is going to play a bigger role in the price: a stronger U.S. economy or a stronger dollar,” said Frank Lesh, a broker at Futurepath Trading. “That’s going to keep copper range-bound for a while.”

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday said it would stop its long-running bond-purchase program at the end of October, as expected. At the same time, the Fed upgraded its assessment of the job market’s performance while pointing to some short-term downside risks on inflation. It stuck to an assurance that short-term interest rates will remain near zero for a “considerable time.”

The comments sparked concerns that the central bank may raise rates sooner than expected, a move that would drive the dollar higher.

The prospect of a stronger dollar hit other industrial metals as well. On the London Metal Exchange, nickel for three-month delivery was off 1.6% to $15,422 a metric ton. Aluminum was down 1.2% to $2,000.60 a metric ton.