London copper steadies

Reuters

Melbourne

London copper steadied on Tuesday as Chinese imports jumped in November, offering a salve to prices even though overall trade declined in the world´s second-largest economy, underlining the fragile outlook for its metals demand.

China´s trade performance remained weak in November, casting doubt on hopes that the world´s second-largest economy would level off in the fourth quarter and spelling more pain for its major trading partners.  But China´s copper imports revived by 9.5 percent to 460,000 tonnes, in part as consumers pounced on prices that last month slumped to six-year lows, and as shipments picked up after a week long holiday in October.  "There is no doubt that weak commodity prices have induced some opportunistic buying.  This should be mildly supportive for commodity markets," ANZ said in a note. "However, we still don´t expect to see Chinese consumers start to aggressively restock with the outlook remaining weak.