It was a mixed day for the base metals Tuesday as copper, nickel, and zinc lost ground, while aluminum and lead rose. Copper was up and down during the day’s trading, dipping briefly below $3.47/lb. in the early morning.

The metal pared its losses with a rally later in the day to finish down a little more than ½ cents, at $3.4997/lb. Zinc also took a dive in the pre-dawn hours, but rallied slightly from that point to end down less then a penny, at $0.7889/lb. Nickel was nearly unchanged in early trading, but dropped almost vertically in the pre-dawn hours to close at $7.8713/lb., down almost 19 cents on the day.

Aluminum bucked the trend of the other base metals by…