METALS-Copper falls as inventories rise; trading slows ahead of China holiday

By Polina Devitt

LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Copper prices fell on Tuesday, under pressure from rising inventories and muted trading ahead of the Lunar New Year break in top metals consumer China that starts this weekend.

Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange CMCU3 was down 0.6% at $13,088.50 a metric ton at 1704 GMT.

Demand has cooled after Chinese downstream buyers wrapped up pre-holiday restocking, Chinese brokerage GF Futures said in a note.

China's fourth-quarter apparent copper consumption fell 12.3% year-on-year, with full-year 2025 demand for the metal up 4%, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note.

There will be little hard data about recent consumption until March due to the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts on February 15, they added.

Meanwhile, copper stocks in LME-registered warehouses MCUSTX-TOTAL are at 189,100 tons, their highest since May, after 4,800 tons were delivered into the warehouses in Taiwan and the U.S., daily LME data showed.

Inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange CU-STX-SGH rose to 248,911 tons of copper, their highest since March, at the end of last week, while Comex copper inventories HG-STX-COMEX, at a record high of 535,430 tons, continue to see daily inflows.

Providing some support to copper, the Chinese yuan CNY=CFXS strengthened past 6.91 per dollar for the first time since May 2023 on Tuesday. The stronger yuan makes dollar-priced metals more attractive for Chinese buyers.

On the technical front, copper is supported by the 21-day moving average at $13,062.

Among other LME metals, aluminium CMAL3 fell 0.9% to $3,098 a ton, zinc CMZN3 rose 0.5% to $3,393, lead CMPB3 gained 0.3% to $1,974, tin CMSN3 added 0.4% to $49,025, while nickel CMNI3 climbed 0.9% to $17,500.