Shanghai base metals trending mixed on Friday morning amid eased market concerns about the slowdown in economic growth. Meanwhile, their counterparts on LME basically went up.

LME non-ferrous metals closed mixed in the trading on Thursday day or night. Copper dropped 2.88%, aluminium inched up 0.02%, lead fell 1.47%, and zinc rose 0.97%.

SHFE non-ferrous metals basically fell overnight. Copper lost 1.34%, aluminium dropped 0.13%, lead fell 0.65%, nickel shed 1.91%, while zinc rose 1.22%.

Copper: Three-month LME copper dropped 2.88% on Thursday night to close at $9,320/mt, and is expected to trade between $9,340-9,420/mt. The open interest reached 258,000 lots.

The SHFE 2110 copper contract edged down 1.34% last night to close at 69,270 yuan/mt, and is expected to trade between 69,000-69,600 yuan/mt today, with spot premiums between 100-350 yuan/mt. Open interests reached 113,000 lots.

The unexpected increase in US retail sales in August announced last night partially alleviated the market concerns about a sharp slowdown in economic growth. At the same time, strong sales data strengthened the market expectation that the Fed might speed up its reduction in debt purchases. Investors' cautious sentiment revived, boosting the US dollar index to rise sharply, and copper futures fell overnight. In terms of spot goods, there is only one trading day left before the Mid-Autumn Festival. Downstream users were resistant to the high prices, but the users with rigid demand had to make purchase as the market will not reopen until September 22. However, the long-term delivery period was forced to be shortened. In this case, the price difference between the standard-quality copper and the high-quality copper was widened to 200-250 yuan/mt. The price spread may stand at this level today as the users have not received the high-quality copper.