By Glenys Sim Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Copper dropped for a sixth day in Asia, heading for the longest losing streak in a year, as investors turned their attention on swelling global inventories amid concern the global economic recovery may stall. The worst postwar recession halved copper prices last year and boosted London Metal Exchange stockpiles by 35 percent this year. Inventories expanded for a 27th day yesterday to 458,500 metric tons, while those in Shanghai warehouses stood at 104,710 tons last week, more than six times the level at the start of the year. “The fundamentals have been brought back to focus as we approach the end of the year and money managers take money off the table to evaluate their investment decisions for the new year,” Yang Zhenqiang, First Futures Brokerage Co. analyst, said from Tianjin. Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange lost as much as 1.1 percent to $6,872 a ton before trading at $6,890 at 10:02 a.m. Singapore time. The metal has fallen for six days, the longest slump since the seven-day period ending Dec. 5, 2008. March-delivery copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell as much as 0.3 percent to 54,440 yuan ($7,973) a ton, before trading little changed at 54,540 yuan. March-delivery copper rose 0.5 percent to $3.14 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Investor sentiment was damped in the past two days after Standard & Poor’s lowered Spain’s credit outlook to “negative” and Fitch Ratings downgraded Greece’s debt. The metal used in construction and automobiles also fell on speculation China’s imports of the metal declined in November for the fourth time in five months. China Data Copper prices have more than doubled this year as a $586 billion Chinese government spending plan spurred raw material purchases, driving copper imports to record levels in the first half of this year. Imports, which were 169,374 tons in October, may be around 160,000 tons last month, said Yang. China is expected to release trade data tomorrow. A labor dispute at Codelco’s Chuquicamata copper mine in northern Chile helped limit the metal’s losses. Workers halted production as they blocked access to the site for an “indefinite” period, union presidents said yesterday. Workers started blocking entry to the site after negotiations over a wage contract stalled, said Cecilia Gonzalez, one of three union presidents representing the miners. Codelco is the world’s largest producer of copper. Among other LME-traded metals, aluminum fell 1.2 percent to $2,184.50 a ton, zinc dropped 0.4 percent to $2,303 a ton, and lead lost 0.3 percent to $2,274 a ton. Nickel slid 0.8 percent to $16,440 a ton, while tin hadn’t traded by 10:08 a.m. in Singapore. To contact the reporter for this story: Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net

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