China and metal pricesI do not believe China is as motivated as it was 15-20 years ago to dump inventories and push down prices in order to gain market share or maintain monopoly on minerals. China is moving away from resource exploitation and low-grade manufacturing as quickly as it can, into service and high-grade manufacture economy. The last thing China wants to see is a return to the environmental disasters of widespread unregulated (illegal) mining.
From what I read in the Asian Metal and Metal Pages, there is "wait and see" attitude from the metal customers. They look at the long decline in prices and rationalize that next month prices may be lower still, so why buy now? If they have stock in store they will wait.
It is all just a small part of the big picture of the commodity slump driven by lowered global growth and it is very similar for all metals.
People have gotten used to deflation and declining prices driven by slow global growth, so they expect even lower prices in the future. At some point the trend will stop. It maybe any of a number of things: China hitting the right low interest rate to incentivize new large projects, the Saudi stopping pumping oil at a loss in order to kill Canadian and US new oil production, consumers in Europe and US deciding to switch from buying new phones to buying new cars or moving into new homes.
For the early trend, the large mining and oil companies (RIO, BHP, XOM) should be looked at. They are always the last to fall and the first to stabilize and start moving up.