OREANDA-NEWS. February 03, 2015. Copper steadied on Monday on hopes that weak Chinese factory growth would spur more stimulus measures and after oil prices rebounded, but gains were capped by worries about Greek efforts to roll back austerity measures.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange ended up just 0.09 percent at \\$5,500 a tonne, following gains of 2 percent on Friday.

Prices moved further away from a 5-1/2 year low of \\$5,339.50 a tonne plumbed last week.

Activity in China's factory sector shrank for the first time in more than two years last month, a private business survey showed on Monday, adding to the debate over how and whether Beijing will accelerate policy easing

"A weak Chinese PMI means there's additional pressure for stimulus measures and copper in particular will benefit," said Nic Brown, head of commodity research at Natixis in London.

"Our view in the past has been you buy copper when manufacturing PMI is at its lows and you sell it when it's at its highs." The most-traded April copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange jumped 2.8 percent to 40,290 yuan (\\$6,437) a tonne.

"It is short-covering in anticipation of further stimulus, or RRR (required reserve ratio) cut," said a trader in Singapore.

A rebound in oil prices also helped support metals.

Gains for metals in Europe, however, were capped by concern over Greece, which launched a drive to persuade a sceptical Europe to accept a new debt agreement while it starts to roll back on austerity measures.

"I think sentiment in Europe through February is going to be difficult, everyone is going to be looking very closely at the Greek timetable," said Brown.

Investors also eyed data from the euro zone, which showed factory activity grew slightly last month as companies kept slashing prices.

In the United States, the manufacturing sector expanded in January at roughly the same pace as in December, holding at the slowest rate of expansion for a year.

Reflecting an increasingly bearish view on copper, hedge funds and money managers raised their net short in copper contracts futures and options during the week to Jan. 27, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data showed on Friday.

In other metals, zinc ended up 0.14 percent at \\$2,128 a tonne, lead dipped 0.54 percent to end at \\$1,850 and nickel rose 1.06 percent to close at \\$15,325.

Aluminium was last bid at \\$1,871 a tonne, up 0.38 percent.

Tin ended at \\$18,850 a tonne, down 0.92 percent after touching a one-month low of \\$18,700.