Shanghai copper rose 1.4 percent to 35,360 yuan ($5,374) a tonne, while most other metals contracts were up by 1 percent or more, with lead and nickel nearly 2 percent higher. But flagging further headwinds for metals demand, growth of investment in China's property sector continued to decline in December, dropping to 1 percent, the slowest in nearly seven years even as national sales improved.
China's fourth quarter growth met expectations and sparked hopes for more stimulus, as well as relief that the world's No 2 economy hadn't shown a more marked deterioration. China's economy grew 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015 from a year earlier, in line with expectations but still the slowest since the global financial crisis.
"It's still a sluggish market on the demand side. Most other commodities are quite deep into the cost curve, but copper's not quite there yet," said analyst Dan Morgan at UBS in Sydney. "Copper is a commodity that we would paint as more vulnerable to the downside on a story that demand is not going to be sufficient to consume the surplus we're in and the greater supply that is coming." The global nickel market recorded a 53,200-tonne surplus for the first 11 months of 2015, around half of the oversupply seen in the same period in 2014, data from the International Nickel Study Group showed on Tuesday.
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