The most-traded June copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange climbed 1.3 percent to 43,690 yuan ($7,056) a tonne on Friday, while lead ended up 2.2 percent after it broke its 200-day moving average, triggering chart-based buys. ShFE tin slumped by 2.2 percent. Physical copper demand was very weak, the trader said, shown by a climb in bonded Shanghai copper stocks to near 700,000 tonnes, while $65 premiums could not hold volume selling.
Tin has given up more than a quarter of its value this year and the price fall is likely to trigger production cuts at some smelters in top exporter Indonesia and also in China, industry group ITRI said.
Indonesia's tin association said on Friday its members and PT Timah, the country's biggest tin exporter, will not trade the metal at prices below $17,000 a tonne, seeking to stem a sharp sell-off. But there was, anyway, not huge demand, traders said.
"I'm selling a bit more than February and March, but not as much as I'd expect given the scale of the fall in tin prices," a trader in Shanghai said.
"We supply mainly end users, such as solder makers and tin plate, and they are reporting that demand is not that great, and hasn't really picked up after Lunar New Year."
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