Some traders said Chinese buyers started the upswing overnight, but they were at a bit of a loss to explain the sizable surge towards the end of the session.
"The market is still very nervous on the way up as well as on the way down. But that's what happens when you get a speculative-driven market and that's pretty much how it is right now. The fundamentals are mostly unrelated to the moves in the market," said one copper trader.
At the COMEX division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, copper for December delivery raced up 4.00 cents to end at $1.82 after posting a high at $1.8250. Last Thursday, December copper set a contract peak at $1.8580.
Spot October was up 1.85 cents at $1.9420 a lb, and set a higher range between $1.93 and $1.9420 a lb.
On Thursday, it set a record peak at $1.9670.
COMEX estimated final copper volume at 13,000 lots, up from 10,474 on Monday.
One trader noted that copper found support even after a steep drop in prices in recent sessions.
"I think that people are just turning back and looking at it because the price has held up fairly well," he said.
With copper prices still near all-time highs, some traders have pointed to underlying options as the guide to copper futures prices as some investors scramble to protect their large positions.
"I'm not too sure that's the whole story, but I do think it's a big contributing factor. It is a big quadrant of the business that we have. Certainly the volatility that we've had is because of the options. As the (futures) prices get closer to the strike price, the delta hedging becomes more apparent," said one copper dealer, echoing other traders.
With speculative targets a main driver of prices, he added that he expects volatility to continue through year end.
London three-months copper finished Tuesday at $3,945 a tonne, a large jump above $3,857 at Monday's close.