MELBOURNE, Sept 24 (Reuters) – London copper eased on Monday as buying was thinned by holidays in China and Japan, a session after it notched up its biggest one-day advance in more than five years on receding trade war concerns. FUNDAMENTALS: COPPER: London Metal Exchange slipped by 1 percent to $6,303 a tonne by 0242 GMT, after prices surged by 4.6 percent in the previous session to $6,382.50 a tonne, the highest since July 10.
* HOLIDAYS: The Shanghai Futures Exchange was closed for its mid-Autumn holiday.
* TRADE: The United States is optimistic about finding a way forward in its trade dispute with China, but it does not have a date scheduled for further talks as it assesses Beijing’s response to the latest round of tariffs, a senior White House official said on Friday.
* RUSAL: Russian aluminium giant United Company Rusal is assembling a team of traders in China, three sources with knowledge of the matter said, as the spectre of U.S. sanctions hangs over its sales to customers in the West.
* RUSAL: The U.S. Treasury said on Friday it had extended until Nov. 12 a deadline for investors to divest holdings of debt, equity and other assets in sanctioned Russian companies EN+ and Rusal.
* The sanctions on Rusal have tightened the market for aluminium and its major ingredient alumina, outside China. Prices for alumina have surged by more than 50 percent to $640 a tonne in early May and again in early September from around $400 a tonne at the start of the year.
* OTHER METALS: Prices of nickel, which surged 5 percent on Friday to the strongest in since late August, slipped by 1.4 percent to $13,060. Aluminium eased 1.2 percent to $2,065 having hit its highest in 11 days on Friday.
