OREANDA-NEWS. February 10, 2015. Copper edged up on Monday as investors shrugged off worse than expected Chinese trade data, but nickel slipped after record inventories showed that expected shortages have failed to appear.

A surprising plunge in China's imports showed that Asia's largest economy is losing momentum despite stimulus measures, analysts said, though global price moves and the impact of holidays may have overstated the extent of the downturn.

"The Chinese data was surprisingly weak across the board, from iron ore to copper and everything else," said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodity research at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

"The positive market reaction might be explained by the simple logic that the worse it gets, the more stimulus we're going to get, but I'm not sure about that."

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange added 0.5 percent to \\$5,678 a tonne by 1024 GMT, having dropped by 1.2 percent in the previous session.

Prices recovered by 2.8 percent last week for the biggest weekly gain since August, due in part to the covering of short poisitions, but are still down more than 10 percent this year.

China's copper imports fell 2.4 percent from a month earlier to 410,000 tonnes in January, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

"I would have expected a lift in copper, and some price-sensitive buying," said Daniel Morgan of UBS in Sydney. "(But) it's not until after Chinese New Year that we're going to get a clearer picture of what's going on."

Chinese New Year begins on Feb. 19.

Many analysts expect a ban on nickel ore shipments from top exporter Indonesia will lead to a market deficit this year, but LME nickel shed 0.4 percent to \\$15,145 a tonne on Monday after LME inventories rose to a record high of 426,324 tonnes.

"I'm really questioning our positive stance on nickel," said Weinberg, who has forecast prices to recover to \\$16,500 by the end of the year.

In other metals, China exported 430,000 tonnes of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products in January, down from December's 540,000 tonnes.

Seepage of China aluminium products into Asia has helped to ease a shortage in the region, dousing a record run in premiums, or surcharges to obtain physical metal, in recent months.

"Strong exports are likely to continue, driven by an expected second consecutive year of smelter capacity additions above 4 million tonnes," Citi said in a note.