The base metals were all mired in the red on Monday. Copper was in the green until the late pre-dawn hours, but fell off the rest of the day, only coming slightly off its intraday lows to finish at $1.6186/lb., down 2¼ cents from Friday.

Nickel sagged from the pre-dawn hours all the way through, closing at its intraday low of $4.3681/lb., down 8 cents. Zinc was in the green until the noon hour, but then it too sold off, ending at its intraday low of $0.525/lb., down nearly a penny. Aluminum had another weak day, shedding a penny and a half to $0.7575/lb., while lead gave up just over a penny, to $0.4837/lb.

Copper was off, albeit perhaps not as much as might have been expected considering the selloffs in other markets, as well as the gloomy news that keeps piling up.

In addition to the grim purchasing managers’ indexes from the US, Europe, Russia, China and South Africa, India’s exports in October fell for the first time in seven years. And economists at JPMorgan Chase estimate that industrial production will decline in developed markets this quarter by the most since 1980.

Perhaps adding a little support to the red metal, and about the only bright spot to be found, was a modest stockpile decline, as inventories monitored by the LME fell 450 metric tons yesterday, to 291,200 tons. Inventories remain nearly 50% higher than September levels, and at their highest since January 2004.

Even as Barclays Capital in London was writing that, “Very weak Chinese and Indian manufacturing data bodes ill for metal consumption,” the governments of those countries were making moves designed to help. Both China and India lifted some price controls yesterday, in a desperate effort to sustain their recent powerful growth trend.

China’s Yunnan province also moved to support prices by purchasing 1 million metric tons of base metals, including 150,000 tons of copper, but to little avail.

Aluminum fell to a 3-year low as LME inventories shot up another 20,850 metric tons, to 1.82 million tons. That brings this year’s stockpile gains to 96%.

In company news, Norilsk Nickel, the world’s top producer of nickel and palladium, said it will cut output of the metals, as well as platinum. Nickel output is expected to fall to 298,000 metric tons this year from 300-305,000 tons, palladium output to 2.764 million ounces from 3.00-3.05 million ounces, and platinum output to 625,000 ounces from 710-720,000.

Output will drop again next year, and capex will be off 34% this year and a projected 48% in 2009.

Source: Base Metals Goin’ Nowhere