London Metal Exchange (LME) metals ended slightly stronger in trading on Thursday, with firmer advances on fund buying capped by profit taking, traders said.
"It was mainly technical buying by the funds and the trade chipped in too," a trader said.
"We think there could be further rises on Friday, particularly ahead of LME week, but there's a growing expectation of a retracement later in October."
Analyst Edward Meir at Man Financial said in a daily report: "Fundamentals are now taking a backseat to the technical frenzy that is pushing metals higher. We still think the rally has more to it, as funds will probably try to get a close above key $3,060 resistance on copper.
"Many of the other metals have more room to go before they reach their recent highs."
Copper ended at $3,046 a tonne after dropping from a near-10-year high at $3,065 in the pre-market. Thursday's kerb close was $11 higher than the day before.
The market has also been buoyed by news of a looming workers' strike on Friday at the largest unit of Chile's state copper company, Codelco.
The union says a strike would reduce output, especially of highly refined cathodes, and force the company to sell more copper contained in concentrate
Aluminium was at $1,850, down $10, and another close above $1,850 could encourage further technical buying, with next firm resistance targeted at $1,970, traders said.
However, traders expected prices to remain neutral in the short term between $1,840 and $1,880.
Nickel was at $16,300, up $320 on fund buying, while tin was at $9,125/140, up $50.
Lead was at $959, up $1, while zinc was up $9 at $1,159/161.
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