Shanghai Futures Exchange copper climbed by 0.6 percent to 41060 yuan ($6,433) a tonne on Thursday as profit-taking that began in US equities fed into global markets, and as more soft data on China stoked jitters over its economic growth. China's consumer inflation in August edged up more than expected from a year earlier, but producer prices fell for the 42nd straight month in the latest sign that deflation remains a significant risk for the world's second-largest economy.
Other data from China in coming weeks is likely to point to further weakness in the economy, reinforcing expectations that Beijing needs to roll out fresh stimulus measures and keeping global financial markets on edge. China is the world's top user of most metals, accounting for 45 percent of copper demand. Still, given recent price-driven production cuts, analyst Matthew Fusarelli at AME Group in Sydney said that copper prices had reached the bottom. "Copper producers have been very quick to say that they're going to throttle production as prices come down ... the outlook for copper is better than the rest of the base metals complex," he said.