The most-traded August copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slid nearly 2 percent to close at 56,260 yuan ($8,900) per tonne on Monday. Copper fell to near one-month lows on Monday, giving up early gains as traders came round to the view that China's weekend cut in reserve requirements suggests a deepening slowdown in the world's top copper consumer.
The failure of talks to form a new government in debt-laden Greece also prompted investors to sell off riskier assets from oil to equities. "It's not about liquidity, it's about real demand. So the liquidity improvement will not help because there's simply no demand out there," said Henry Liu, head of commodity research at Mirae Asset Securities in Hong Kong.