Copper, base metals fall after weakness in Chinese house prices

LONDON, Oct 24 (Reuters): Copper, aluminium and other base metals lost ground on Friday after Chinese house prices fell for a fifth straight month, highlighting concerns about economic growth in the world's biggest metals consumer.
"Anything that on a short-term basis that indicates softness in the Chinese property sector is going to be a concern, but I wouldn't overplay one data point," said Nicholas Snowdon, metals analyst at Standard Chartered.
"It certainly remains an environment where there's this tension between relatively constructive micro fundamentals for base metals, versus concern about the macro economic picture."
The fall in Chinese home prices in September wiped out gains scored in the past year, raising expectations the government will have to implement more economic support measures to cushion the blow.
China's economy is likely to grow at its slowest pace in 24 years this year and will cool further in 2015, weighed down by a cooling property sector and factory over capacity and as top leaders push structural reforms, a Reuters poll showed.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange  slipped 0.2 per cent to $6,684 a tonne by 0934 GMT, after gaining around 1 per cent in the previous session.
LME copper prices were set to advance by 0.7 per cent for the week in their biggest weekly rise since late August.    
Prices have steadied as Chinese copper demand has shown a slight improvement this month on the back of orders from manufacturers ahead of the Christmas and Lunar New Year sales season, traders said. That, and tentative signs of economic growth have broadly provided some support to metals prices.