Copper touched a near eight-month high on Monday, rising above $6,500 a tonne for the first time this year after U.S.
President Donald Trump deferred a planned hike in tariffs on Chinese goods.
"I think maybe there's some profit taking. Investors wanted to wait for some news flow going forward," said Helen Lau, an analyst at Argonaut Securities.
Despite the "slight pullback," there has been no real change in momentum for copper so far, Lau said, noting that top consumer China had imported and stockpiled a lot of metal before the Lunar New Year holiday earlier this month.
If China's copper demand picks up at pace post-holiday and there are further supply constraints in Indonesia and Peru, prices will see more support, Lau added.
FUNDAMENTALS
* LME COPPER: Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange had fallen 0.3 percent to $6,461 a tonne by 0449 GMT, after ending fractionally higher in the previous session, when it hit $6,540 a tonne, the highest since July 4.
* SHFE COPPER: The most-traded April copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was down 0.5 percent at 50,060 yuan ($7,475.44) a tonne by the end of the morning.
* COPPER STOCKS: On-warrant LME copper inventories <MCUSTX-TOTAL> available to the market fell by 6,350 tonnes to 33,450 tonnes, the lowest level since August 2005.
* Chinese miner MMG Ltd 1208.HK said on Monday it will have to delay some shipments of copper concentrate from Matarani Port in Peru due to a blockade by an indigenous community of a road used to transport copper from the company's Las Bambas mine.
* TECHNICALS: LME copper may break a resistance at $6,525 per tonne and rise to $6,662 in a week, as suggested by its wave pattern and a projection analysis.
* OTHER METALS: Most base metals retreated, although London aluminium eked out a 0.1 percent gain and LME tin was flat.
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MARKETS NEWS
* Asian shares lost steam after scaling a five-month high as investors waited to see if Washington and Beijing can clinch a trade deal.