Copper and nickel fall after weak Chinese data

Copper fell on Thursday after weak economic data in top metals consumer China and US jobs data that missed forecasts fanned worries about global base metals demand. Data showed China's economy lost momentum in October, with factory growth dipping and investment growth slumping to a near 13-year low, testing the government's resolve to avoid stronger stimulus measures.
In the United States, the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed 0.4 percent lower at $6,655 a tonne. Citi analyst David Wilson said Chinese demand for metals was holding up fairly well despite weaker economic data.
"The fixation on the high-level macro data is somewhat misleading. The key point is that China is still going to require some very big tonnages of additional metal supplies." Nickel reversed earlier gains to fall 4 percent to end at $15,400 a tonne. Limiting the decline were expectations that shortages would finally develop early next year from the delayed impact of a ban by Indonesia on ore shipments.
Nickel shot up earlier in the year after top exporter Indonesia banned ore shipments, but lost most of the gains after the Philippines unexpectedly filled much of the supply gap. Wilson said that as Philippine shipments dropped off during the monsoon season, the key nickel pig iron (NPI) market in China was showing signs that shortages could come up. "We've seen a slight edge up in premia for LME material, which suggests we're not going to get any more flow of refined nickel out of China," he said. A flow of inventories from China into LME warehouses has weighed on the market, but LME nickel stocks have declined in two of the last three sessions.
Also giving weight to investors' bets on shortages was a forecast by state-backed researcher Antaike that China's nickel production would fall 10 percent next year. In other metals, aluminium, untraded at the close, was bid at $2,040, down 1 percent. Dutch smelter Aluminium Delfzijl (Aldel) will restart production early next year, owner Klesch Group said, 10 months after the smelter applied for bankruptcy. Zinc closed 1.3 percent lower at $2,251, tin ended down 1.3 percent at $19,860 and lead, untraded at the close, was bid at $2,018, down 1.5 percent.