LME copper finished at $6,790/mt, up $45.

"Sentiment has improved," said Eugen Weinberg, commodities analyst at Commerzbank. "The U.S. ISM data means manufacturing is picking up and implies the second largest client on the metals market will be asking for more industrial metals."

"We had a really good ISM number this morning. That's a big part of it. We had a weaker dollar too following release of the budget numbers. So, a combination of those two factors," said Matthew Zeman, head of trading with LaSalle Futures Group in Chicago.

"China's definitely going to tighten the amount of bank lending across the economy, which will slow down growth," said Charles Kernot, an analyst at Evolution Securities.

"But they need to make sure that there is still some growth coming through," he added.

"A lot of this stuff was really beat up last month. So, we had a little more risk appetite in the market today. At the beginning of a new month we had some buyers come in and buying some of these issues on sale," said Zeman.

"Whether the buying is sustainable is another question. But, it helped today," he added.

Aluminium ended at $2,085/mt, up $5. Nickel was at $18,000, down $500. Lead was last quoted at $2,045/mt, $25 up. Zinc was at $2,145/mt, up $35, and tin fell by $50 to $16,150/mt.