With little else going on, some players were gearing up for the end of the month when December becomes the spot contract and they sold December copper and rolled their long positions into March contracts, traders said.
Some brokers said the small closing rally came from short-cover buying mostly among locals. "The market's done nothing.
There was a little momentum on the downside and then it's right back up. The volumes are way down.
So it's hard to make opinions on this market, because no one is really seeing anything," said one copper dealer.
The Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange's copper for December delivery finished 0.15 cent higher at $1.8475 a lb. after a range in December copper was $1.8280 to $1.8555.
The all-time peak at $1.8580 was hit on October 20. Spot November ended 0.40 cent higher at $1.9375 a lb., and traded in a range from $1.9170 to $1.94 a lb., a new contract high.
Comex estimated final copper volume at 21,000 lots.
With copper's high volatility in recent sessions, some traders said they were seeing less activity than usual even from locals, who remained cautious after getting whipsawed by the swift direction changes.
"I've heard even the locals on the Comex are doing less then usual, because they're getting chopped up. A lot of the trading is in the systems and that's what you have to watch," said a desk broker.
Many players had expected a sharp sell-off last week with many metal market participants in London during London Metal Exchange week.
But the week passed with relatively little copper price movement, surprising many players who are now sorting out their strategies with prices sitting near record levels.
For now, traders said they thought copper may be tracing out a sideways base after moving up toward the all-time high at $1.9890 a lb. hit on October 26.
Dollar strength contributed vaguely to Monday's selling, but aside from a few rollovers, traders said, the action was featureless. The dollar scaled a 26-month high against the yen and an 18-month peak against the euro on Monday, with investors betting that the US interest rate outlook would continue to underpin the greenback.
Dollar-denominated copper prices tend to ease when the US currency gains to balance out the red metal's cost for overseas investors.
Added supply from a small injection into London Metal Exchange warehouses also worked to depress copper prices.
London Metal Exchange warehouse stocks rose by 400 tonnes to 67,675 tonnes on Monday.
Comex inventories were unchanged at 3,690 short tons on Friday's daily report.
In London, three-month copper finished nearly flat at $3,974 a tonne after on Friday's close at $3,975 a tonne.