The most-traded January copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange pared early losses to close at 51,730 yuan ($8,500) a tonne on Thursday, still down 1 percent. It earlier touched 51,430 yuan, its lowest since October 14 as the session before, boosted by improving manufacturing growth in the world's No 1 metals consumer China.
Activity in China's giant manufacturing sector picked up in October, a preliminary survey showed on Thursday, suggesting the economy may have stabilised even though a strong rebound remains elusive. "The big question people are looking at now is what happens in the fourth quarter," said analyst Ivan Szpakowski of Citi in Shanghai. "Our view is that it will be slower and a lot of that is basis credit tightening since Q2 and because of that we're expecting slower growth and that does feed into our bearish copper view."