US copper futures edged higher in morning business on Thursday, on the back of better-than-expected US February manufacturing activity, traders said.
However, ongoing nervousness in global equity markets was seen keeping a lid on the early advance, they added.
"It has been very choppy, very volatile, but it is all on the screen and all technical. The ISM data is helping this morning, but everyone still is eyeing the equity markets. That will continue to be a big worry for this market," he added.
By 10:13 am EST (1513 GMT), copper for May delivery was up 1.30 cents at $2.7650 a lb on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division, near the lower end of its early $2.7350 to $2.8180 trading band.
Spot March was up 0.75 cent at $2.7405, a shade above its morning low at $2.7375. COMEX copper futures volumes were on the light side, with only 500 lots traded by 9 am.
According to market analysts, the metals complex remained unsettled by the tentative mood in equity markets following this week's global equity sell-off, sparked by the near 9 percent plunge in China's Shanghai Composite on Tuesday, its biggest one-day fall in a decade.
"We still would be more inclined to the long side in metals at this stage, but there will be considerable turbulence as markets have yet to work away from under the shadow of the equity markets," said Edward Meir, metals analyst with Man Financial.
Refined copper imports of the world's top copper consumer jumped 86.3 percent to 131,851 tonnes in January compared with a year earlier, and are 37.6 percent higher than 95,831 tonnes in December.
On the production front, Chile's Codelco, the biggest copper miner in the world, said on Thursday it produced 1.783 million tonnes of the metal last year, down 2.6 percent from 1.831 million tonnes in 2005.
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