Reuters reported that copper hovered near 6 month lows as a firm dollar, weak German and US data and a downgrade to some of the world's leading banks deepened concerns about the global economy and demand for raw materials. Three month copper on the London Metal Exchange extended losses into a third straight session, trading at $7,281 a tonne in official rings and touched a session low of $7,219.50, its weakest since December 19th 2011. Investors have been retreating from riskier assets after China's factory sector shrank for an eighth straight month, business activity in the euro area contracted for a fifth month and US manufacturing grew at its slowest pace in 11 months. German business sentiment fell to its lowest level in more than two years and Moody's cut the credit ratings of 15 global banks including JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. Mr Duncan Hobbs analyst of Macquarie commodities said that "Markets are falling across the board on a whole lot of negative macro news flow out in particular from China and the United States. That seems to be the focus point at the moment. Copper has lost about 14% this quarter and analysts see room for the industrial metal to drop further. Mr Matt Fusarelli analyst at Australia based consultancy AME Group said that "Commodity prices have come off quite substantially over the past few months, so we would expect them to reach the natural bottom but notwithstanding more shocks, the risks are still to the downside." A firmer dollar which makes dollar priced assets more costly for users of other currencies, also weighed on copper and the other base metals. Chinese players were away for a public holiday, helping to hold off what could have been a big sell off in Chinese markets in response to the overnight slide in global markets. Ahead of a summit in Brussels next week, leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain will meet in Rome on Friday to discuss ways to restore confidence in the euro zone.

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