Base metals remained choppy on Wednesday. Copper, Zinc and lead settled lower than their previous close on LME while Nickel and Aluminium ended higher taking support from the weakening of dollar against the Euro. The CPI data released was found to be less than expected, raising the demand concerns and acted as a deterrent to the metals prices.

Nickel gained almost 2.20 percent while Aluminium rose by 1.55 percent on LME. However, Nickel and Aluminium rose by 0.21 percent and 2.31 percent respectively on MCX.

Australian Equinox Minerals Ltd.'s Zambian mining unit said on Wednesday it lost $1.8 million in revenue equivalent to 500 tonnes in copper production during a national power blackout.

The global copper market was in a surplus of 133,000 tonnes in January-April, the World Bureau of Metal Statistics (WBMS) said on Wednesday. That figure compared with a deficit of 161,000 tonnes in the same period in 2008. Aluminium was in surplus by 591,000 tonnes compared with a surplus of
176,000 tonnes in the same period last year while the lead market was in surplus of 11,600 tonnes versus a surplus of 14,100 tonnes a year earlier.

As far as base metals are concerned, there are some serious demand concerns as induced by the indicators. Moreover, metals have remained range bound and shown some weakness in the previous sessions. We expect metals to trade sideways during the day. The weakness in dollar may prevent any major downside in base metals. We do not recommend buying.