By: Kathleen Retourne

London 11/10/2012 - Base metals came off earlier lows but remained in recent ranges on Thursday morning while eurozone concerns continue to dominate sentiment.

Copper set a fresh two-week low at one stage, aluminium hit its lowest for five weeks, one-month lows were seen in lead and zinc, and nickel dropped to its weakest for three weeks.

Sentiment across financial markets has take a knock from the IMF, which downgraded growth expectations for both 2012 and 2013, concerns over Chinese growth and renewed fretting over the eurozone.

The euro, too, has pulled back from last week's strong levels above 1.3000 against the dollar and was trading around a soft 1.2890 this morning.

In the short term, little change is expected in the general trend - informal G7 meetings and a pick-up in data releases will focus attention today. On the data side, US weekly jobless claims figures and the trade balance will be released.

Overall, however, the metal complex is managing to hold up against the poor economic backdrop and is still much improved from the lows witnessed in the summer.

“Copper has benefited from QE3 but aluminium is still very much in the real world,” a trader said. “There is not much consumption of aluminium and economics are not good but the injection of cash from the Fed stimulus will eventually benefit aluminium and as copper tracks higher aluminium will find some buying too.”  


ANTWERP STOCKS RISE

Aluminium was up $10 on the previous day’s close at $2,019 per tonne. Inventories rose a net 21,500 tonnes after a second day of increases in Antwerp, rising 30,925 tonnes to 85,400 tonnes - all of which are on warrant. Stocks in this location have increased 57 percent since the start of the week. Total cancelled warrants at 1,641,625 tonnes were down 12,425 tonnes.

Lead was up $14 to $2,211. Stocks rose 15,500 tonnes to 281,175 tonnes, the highest since September 24. Again, Antwerp was mostly responsible - inventories there rose 19,100 tonnes to 41,825 tonnes, up 112 percent on Monday. Cancelled warrants fell 3,500 tonnes.

Copper is up $44 at $8,209. Looming October date tightness continues to cushion the downside, with Oct/Nov trading at $4.00 backwardation. Stocks were slightly higher at 219,550 tonnes, an increase of 125 tonnes, while cancelled warrants slipped 1,275 tonnes to 50,425 tonnes.

Zinc gained $17 to 1,990. Inventories dropped 1,325 tonnes to 1,008,250 tonnes while cancelled warrants were up 8,325 tonnes- rising 4,125 tonnes to 42,450 tonnes in Johor and 4,100 tonnes to 321,000 tonnes in New Orleans.

Nickel remained below $18,000 at $17,693 was $23 higher. Inventories edged down 18 tonnes to 124,368 tonnes, while cancelled warrants declined 1,152 tonnes to 14,022 tonnes.

Tin at $21,900 was up $75 after stocks fell five tonnes to 12,240 tonnes and cancelled warrants rose 725 tonnes to 6,805 tonnes.

Steel was steady at $350/365, while stocks were unchanged. In the minor metals, cobalt was indicated at 27,300/29,000 and molybdenum was neglected even after 12-tonne falls in stocks and cancelled warrants to 120 tonnes and six tonnes respectively.


(Additional reporting by Martin Hayes, editing by Mark Shaw)