Seoul, July 10: Copper prices edged up slightly in Asian trade on Thursday due to heavily oversold in London Metal Exchange (LME), but technically the market remains very weak and could be heading for $2,100 if support at $2,200 cracks, dealers said.

"The current copper market shows further weakness on technical factors even though it is extremely oversold," a trader with a local LME brokerage firm said.

Three-month copper was trading at $2,245/$2,250 a tonne at 0400 GMT in thin Asian trade, compared with $2,243/$2,248 at Wednesday's LME close.

The trader said a chart gap between $2,308 and $2,365 seemed to be a runaway gap, which is also called a measuring gap. The runaway gap is a sign of weakness in a down trend and usually occurs at about the halfway point in the trend.

"The target of the current downward move is estimated at $2,100 a tonne," the trader added. But he said there was strong support at $2,200 a tonne as technically copper prices need a corrective bounce to reduce the market's oversold position.

The 14-day relative strength index (RSI) for three-month copper fell to 21.88 per cent on Wednesday from 33.44 per cent the previous day. The market generally considers an RSI of 70 or more as overbought and 30 or less as oversold.

Dealers said heavy deliveries of physical copper from China and South Korea were also depressing the market.

But they said possible Chinese buying, expected to emerge later in the second half of this year, could bolster copper.

"A further slide of three-month copper prices to below $2,200 a tonne is likely to lure Chinese buyers back to the market in the second half of this year," one dealer said.

Dealers said the copper market continued to shrug off production stoppages as a seasonal consumer slowdown in Europe and the US was also beginning to affect order books.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.