By Barani Krishnan and Michael Taylor NEW YORK/LONDON, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Copper hit 27-month highs on Tuesday, coming within striking distance of a record set in London futures, although the dollar's rebound weighed on New York prices of the metal. Benchmark copper for three-month delivery CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange closed up $198 at $8,858 a tonne. During the LME session, it hit a high of $8,875 a tonne, not far from the record high of $8,940 touched in July 2008. On the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, copper for December delivery HGZ0 settled up 2.2 percent at $4.0290 a lb after running up to $4.0475. But in after-hours trade, it fell to as low as $3.9275 per lb as the dollar climbed sharply, buoyed by higher U.S. bond yields. [USD/] [US/] Gold and crude oil also lost early gains on the dollar's rebound. "The selloff started because the market had gone too far, too fast," said Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader at Chicago's Integrated Brokerage Services LLC. He was echoing some analysts who said the rally in commodities had been overdone since the Federal Reserve said last week it hoped to bolster U.S. economic growth through a new round of monetary easing worth $600 billion. Even with the dollar's rebound, few were willing to bet that prices of raw materials, including of that of copper, will stop climbing anytime soon. Aside from copper's 27-month peak on Tuesday, tin saw record high prices. [MET/L] [COT/N] "Anticipation of inflation, in addition to existing inflation in some countries, has fueled a sharp rally across the board in commodities," said Hou Xinqiang, an analyst at Jinrui Futures in Shanghai. "We don't see any chance that the United States, euro zone nations, or Japan would pull out of easy monetary policies any time soon, so inflation worries will continue to be a reason for speculative trades." Edward Meir, base metals analyst for MF Global in New York, concurred with that. "We suspect that lingering misgivings about the Fed's QE2 move (second bout of quantitative easing) is also fuelling the general aversion away from paper currencies and into hard assets," Meir said. Tin CMSN3 hit a record of $27,500 a tonne as analysts cited persistent supply doubts in top exporter Indonesia. Lead jumped over 4 percent to its highest level since January, reaching $2,639 a tonne.[ID:nJAK90472] Some of the support for copper prices came on Tuesday from a strike by union workers at Chile's Collahuasi, the world's No. 3 copper mine. The strike headed into its fifth day, with no sign of resolution. The mine's owners said deliveries had not been affected. But industry sources indicated they expected some impact soon on supply from the work stoppage. [ID:nN09276450] [ID:nN05111737] "When I look at copper, you have got relatively steady draws on inventories," said Michael Widmer, an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. "Growth may be slowing, but overall the market is not hugely oversupplied for whatever reason -- be it because of re-stocking or insufficient supply." Worries about copper supplies in the near term pushed the metal into a $5 a tonne backwardation -- a premium for cash material over the three-month contract MCU0-3 -- compared with a discount of $20 a tonne in late October. Among other metals, aluminium CMAL3 ended at $2,469 a tonne versus $2,429. The metal is not far from two-year highs above $2,494 from April. LME stocks for the metal, used in transport and packaging, shed 10,475 tonnes to 4.27 million tonnes. Stainless steel-making ingredient nickel CMNI3 finished at $24,620 from $24,125, while battery material lead CMPB3 was at $2,609 from $2,504. Zinc CMZN3 wound up at $2,580 a tonne, up over 4 percent from $2,479 and tin CMSN3 was seen at $27,350 from $26,595. Metal Prices at 2025 GMT Metal Last Change Pct Move End 2009 Ytd Pct move COMEX Cu 398.35 -5.95 -1.47 334.65 19.03 LME Alum 2450.00 -2.00 -0.08 2230.00 9.87 LME Cu 8700.00 40.00 +0.46 7375.00 17.97 LME Lead 2560.00 56.00 +2.24 2432.00 5.26 LME Nickel 24500.00 375.00 +1.55 18525.00 32.25 LME Tin 27000.00 560.00 +2.12 16950.00 59.29 LME Zinc 2570.00 91.00 +3.67 2560.00 0.39 SHFE Alu 0.00 -16905.00 -100.00 17160.00 -100.00 SHFE Cu* 0.00 -67670.00 -100.00 59900.00 -100.00 SHFE Zin 0.00 -20610.00 -100.00 21195.00 -100.00 ** Benchmark month for COMEX copper * 3rd contract month for SHFE AL, CU and ZN SHFE ZN began trading on 26/3/07

Source