NEW YORK: Copper and gold prices fell on Monday on fears of a liquidity crunch in China, while oil rebounded from a nearly slide to finish higher after record flooding in Canada's main oil-producing province threatened exports to the United States.
In agricultural markets, the price of new-crop corn fell for a third straight session in Chicago as favorable growing weather across the Midwestern United States reinforced the prospect of a record-large harvest.
Among other crops, cocoa dropped to multi-month lows in New York and London as funds kept liquidating long positions after prices fell below key technical levels.
The 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index fell 0.2 percent. The index lost 2.8 percent last week for its sharpest weekly decline since October after a selloff triggered by bleak Chinese data and plans by the US Federal Reserve to cut stimulus efforts.
"For the time being, it seems that the path of least resistance in most markets is lower still," Edward Meir, metals analyst at INTL FC Stone wrote in a commentary.
"The reverberations from last week's Fed policy statement and concerns about credit conditions in China are too large to ignore at this stage, and we need to see the aftershocks settle a bit before the buyers feel it is safe enough to return."
Copper's key three-month contract on the London Metal Exchange touched a session low of $6,613 a tonne, its lowest since July 2010. It closed down more than 2 percent at $6,670.
The spot price of gold fell around 1 percent to below $1,282 an ounce, extending last week's 7 percent slide.
Oil's benchmark Brent crude out of Europe's North Sea settled up 25 cents, or 0.25 percent, at $101.16 a barrel. Last week, Brent fell 4.7 percent.
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