Copper slides

Reuters

London

Copper tumbled to its lowest since May 2009, pressured by a slide in oil prices plus further losses in shares and the offshore currency in China, where weak loan data undermined sentiment.

Chinese shares fell below last month's low while the yuan weakened sharply offshore, knocking confidence about demand for metals in the world's top consumer of raw materials.  Oil futures plunged again below $30 a barrel as the market braced for more Iranian oil exports.  Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange ended down 1.9 percent at $4,331 a tonne, having hit the weakest since May 2009 at $4,318 earlier.

Prices are down 8 percent this month, hitting a succession of multi-year lows in the New Year as investor sentiment soured.

"In general terms copper is not a soft market, but the futures market is not responding to physical signals at the moment, it's trading on China, world macro data, equities," said analyst Vivienne Lloyd at Macquarie.