London 14/01/2016 - Base metals veered away from their early lows during the latter segment of Thursday LME trading, with end-day covering temporarily negating overall downward momentum, traders said.
This resulted in metals concluding in the plus column although the advances were shallow given current bearish sentiment and weakness in other key global markets - equities and oil.
"It is a market that will be bumping along the bottom, try to rally, then get sold off into new lows. Technically, we are in a time of lower highs and much lower lows - downtrends," a floor trader said.
"If there is no positive news anywhere else - and there isn't, with stocks and oil getting pasted more often than not - then metals won't buck the pattern," another trader said.
Earlier, copper and tin stood out during initial falls, dropping to fresh lows since mid-2009. Today, the fall in the crude oil price below $30 per barrel for the first time since 2004 also exacerbated the negative sentiment in commodity markets. Brent crude was recently around $30.30 per barrel, having touched $29.69 today.
Otherwise, equity markets were mixed - the UK FTSE was lower while US markets moved up. On the data side, fresh weekly US jobless claims were 284,000 against a predicted 275,000. Earlier, the German WPI fell 0.8 percent while Italian industrial production was down 0.5 percent.
There is little sign that the 2016 pattern will change, traders said - bearish news and developments will outweigh any potential supportive factors.
"Trading will likely remain very volatile, with US stocks and oil once again setting the pace for the general market," Ed Meir of INTL FCStone said in a report.
In the metals, copper touched an early low of $4,330 per tonne, its weakest since May 2009, but then recovered back above $4,400 to finish at $4,415.50, a $25.50 gain from Wednesday.
In today's warehouse data, copper stocks fell a net 2,125 tonnes to 233,400 tonnes and cancelled warrants dropped 850 tonnes to 39,225 tonnes.
Aluminium closed $19.50 higher at $1,482.50. Inventories and cancelled warrants both dropped 5,850 tonnes to 2,846,650 tonnes and 1,031,375 tonnes respectively.
In the spreads, cash/threes moved back into backwardation - it was last at $7.50.
Nickel was quoted last at $8,570/8,580, a $180 gain. Stocks fell 2,736 tonnes to 433,968 tonnes and cancelled warrants dropped 4,866 tonnes to 175,884 tonnes.
Zinc rose $17 to conclude at $1,511. Stocks were down 975 tonnes to 447,100 tonnes and cancelled warrants were up 9,625 tonnes to 55,675 tonnes. Lead was last $2 higher at $1,629 - stocks fell 300 tonnes to 189,900 tonnes.
Tin fell as low as $13,085, its softest since July 2009, before ending at an unchanged $13,350. A test of the psychologically important $13,000 level is likely soon. Stocks climbed 55 tonnes to 6,145 tonnes.
Steel was quoted at $185/235, cobalt at $23,500/24,000 and molybdenum at $11,400/11,900.
(Additional reporting by Ewa Manthey, editing by Mark Shaw)