Shanghai Futures Exchange copper cut early losses to trade up 0.4 percent at 38,990 yuan ($5,769) a tonne on Thursday after a tightening US presidential race sparked profit-taking, with a softer US dollar and encouraging economic signals from top user China cushioning prices.
In Shanghai, ShFE zinc and aluminium cut early losses. LME nickel zinc and lead all rallied around 1 percent, helped by a recovery in Chinese steel prices.
"Copper prices in the past few days have been rising, as the USD fell and because of the good China PMI, (so) we've seen a bit of profit-taking (in the) short term," said analyst Helen Lau of broker Argonaut Securities in Hong Kong.
China's services sector grew at the strongest pace in four months in October as new business picked up, encouraging companies to hire more workers, the Caixin/Markit services purchasing managers' index (PMI) showed.
The trend echoed growing activity at China's factories after its official PMI expanded at the fastest pace in more than two years in October, bolstering views that the world's second-largest economy is stabilising.
Still, not everyone was convinced of a rosy outlook for copper in China. Copper consumption by Arc Resources' end-user clients in China was poor this year, and next year could be even worse, the copper trading company's chief executive told Reuters.
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