Updates prices

By Julian Luk

London May 23 (Reuters) -Copper prices fell for a third consecutive session as profit-taking continued on Thursday and consumers refused to buy at near-record levels.

Benchmark copper CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was down 0.4% at $10,383 a metric ton at 1609 GMT, having fallen as far as $10,210.

Traders said there was strong technical support at $10,200 in the afternoon trade.

It had been dropping due to profit-taking on long positions - bets on higher prices - since hitting a record high of $11,104.5 on Monday. It has since fallen 6.5% but is still up 20% so far this year.

Speculative funds have been "cashing out", but will come back expecting higher copper prices over the long term, Wisdom Tree's Nitesh Shah said.

Copper is crucial for the world's shift to electrification due to its conductivity. It is mainly used for making cables and wires. But physical consumption has not been able to catch up with the speculative frenzy.

In China, the top consumer of the metal, copper inventory remained at a four-year high as demand waned after prices surpassed $10,000 a ton. MCUSTX-TOTAL

A BNP Paribas research note cited an estimate of 500,000 tons of unsold wire-rod copper stock in China.

The global refined copper market showed a 125,000 ton surplus in March, the International Copper Study Group said on Wednesday.

For other metals, lead CMPB3 retreated after hitting a two-year high on Wednesday, and was last trading 0.6% lower at $2,300.

LME aluminium CMAL3 fell 0.7% to $2,619 a ton, nickel CMNI3 dropped 1% to $20,145, zinc CMZN3 edged down 0.1% to $3,058.5 and tin CMSN3 was down 0.2% at $33,440.

Reporting by Julian Luk; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jan Harvey

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