Copper prices edged up on Thursday helped by a weaker US dollar, but a jump in inventories and a pessimistic global growth outlook weighed on prices.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.1% to $8,778.50 per metric ton by 0323 GMT.
However, the contract has lost 4.7% so far this month, extending a streak of consecutive monthly falls since June.
The dollar was weaker, making greenback-priced commodities cheaper to holders of other currencies.
The most-traded September copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, however, fell 0.8% to 70,930 yuan ($9,889.02) a ton, tracking the loss on the LME in the previous session.
“The global economic growth cycle has turned lower. This means that all markets might synchronise and move together. With rising visible stocks and recovering treatment charges and refining charges (TC/RCs), copper bulls have no story left,” said Sandeep Daga, director at Metal Intelligence Centre.
Rising TC/RCs - the fees copper smelters charge miners to process raw material - implies an improvement in copper concentrate supply on the spot market, which has been tight and one of the reasons for investors to be bullish on copper prices.
Meanwhile, LME copper inventories jumped nearly three folds in just under three months to 294,750 tons on Wednesday. The recent deliveries were sent into LME warehouses in South Korea and Taiwan, the closest to China.
Copper slumps on jump in inventories, weak Chinese data
LME aluminium declined 0.6% to $2,274 a ton, nickel dropped 0.9% to $16,145, lead eased 0.6% to $1,955.50, tin fell 0.8% to $29,765 while zinc was nearly flat at $2,582.50.
SHFE aluminium eased 0.2% to 18,920 yuan a ton, nickel dropped 1.5% to 127,430 yuan, zinc declined 0.5% to 21,895 yuan while lead rose 0.1% to 17,345 yuan, and tin advanced 0.5% to 245,660 yuan.
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