Shanghai copper barely changed

Shanghai Futures Exchange copper was barely changed at 47,980 yuan ($6,948) a tonne on Monday on jitters that Beijing would set down tougher measures to cool its housing sector, although trade was thin as markets digested the results of a meeting of G20 financial leaders.
ShFE zinc rallied 2.1 percent on Monday. In China, traders were expecting the import differential for zinc to turn positive after a steep draw from ShFE warehouses last week and a flurry of smelters announcing maintenance plans, traders said. ShFE zinc stocks slumped by 8,490 tonnes, or 4.4 percent last Friday from the week before, while Shanghai aluminium stocks surged 47,513 tonnes, or 17.7 pct.
China's red-hot property market picked up pace in February after price gains slowed in the previous four months, with average new home prices in 70 major cities edging up despite a raft of new government curbs aimed at tempering speculative demand.
The labour union at the world's largest copper mine, BHP Billiton's
Escondida in Chile, called a fresh offer of talks by management to end a 39-day strike "manipulative".
Financial leaders of the world's biggest economies dropped a pledge to keep global trade free and open, acquiescing to an increasingly protectionist United States after a two-day meeting failed to yield a compromise.
Hedge funds and money managers trimmed their bullish position in copper by 4,700 lots to 52,449 lots, the lowest since early November, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed.
China will boost output of major non-ferrous metals this year by 4.8 percent, the industry ministry said on Friday, as the world's top producer and consumer moves to boost efficiency in its metals industry.