The base metals were mostly higher on Friday. Copper was down in the pre-dawn hours, but took off once New York trading began and pushed steadily higher, only retreating a little after noon to finish at $3.8731/lb., up 8 2/3 cents.

Nickel also rallied off its pre-dawn lows, but it wasn’t enough to get it back into the black as it closed at $12.724/lb., down 4½ cents. Zinc inched higher, ending at $0.9824/lb., up three-quarters of a cent. Aluminum had a strong day, adding 2 2/3 cents to $1.2998/lb., while lead logged a modest gain to $1.1595/lb., up a penny and a quarter.

After the bloodletting on Thursday, most traders were clearly in a bargain-hunting mood yesterday.

“In the likes of copper where the fundamentals are tight and, if anything, tightening, this sell-off may well be snapped up as a buying opportunity,” said Basemetals.com analyst William Adams.

“This is especially so when you consider that the equity and dollar rally is unfolding on the back of high hopes that the interest rate cuts and other measures the U.S. Federal Reserve has taken will bolster the U.S. economy, which in turn should be good for metal demand,” Adams added.

Also factoring in were supply worries. Inventories monitored by the LME dropped by 450 metric tons yesterday, to 109,625 tons.

Bill O’Neill, of LOGIC Advisors in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, remains bullish, saying that, “The market has a very solid underlying base as far as low free stocks are concerned. We have the Codelco strike situation continuing, so I think there is some pretty good underlying fundamentals within the market … Long term, this copper bull market is still in play.”

The Codelco situation remained unchanged yesterday, with the Andino and Salvador mines staying shut, and no end to the strike in sight.

And a Macquarie Bank report said Chinese copper demand for the first quarter was up by only 1% year-on-year, as consumers re-built stocks. However, “Aluminium was up by 9.5% year-on-year, affected by supply disruptions following weather/power problems and lower exports of aluminium fabricated products,” the report noted.

Most analysts believe that the industrial metals will be driven in the near future by the dollar, as traders try to divine whether a real rally is underway, or whether the buck is merely making a dead cat bounce. Monday will have little to tell, as the LME is closed for holiday.