Base metals were mixed on the London Metals Exchange Wednesday, pressured by fund liquidation as the market digested mixed U.S. economic news.

"Effectively the market is still ranging, and there is still a little bit of confusion as to the direction of the U.S. economy," said Triland Metals analyst Roy Carson.

This could come from advance U.S. GDP figures Friday, he said.

Copper finished up 0.5% at $7,860/metric ton after see-sawing on mixed U.S data during the session.

The base metals complex started lower, but upticked on bullish durable goods data from the U.S, a broker said.

Orders for durable goods increased by 3.4% in March versus an expected climb of only 2.7%.

This was offset however by slightly bearish housing news from a smaller-than-expected rise in new home sales, which sparked some fund selling across the complex.

Sales of single-family homes increased by 2.6% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 858,000, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, but were below expectations of a 5.0% increase.

This carries on from Tuesday's slide, when March data showed that existing-home sales took the biggest tumble in 18 years as poor weather struck demand.

Adding to copper price support was of strike action at Southern Copper Corp.'s Toquepala unit in Peru from Saturday and continued stock drawdowns, Triland Metal's Carson said.

Copper for now is rangebound between $7,600-$8,100/ton with a break of $8,200/ton seen triggering a move sharply higher.

The rest of the base metals mostly took their tone from copper, with tin down 1% and the rest of the metals consolidating slightly lower.

LME zinc however held in positive territory around $3,760/ton, up from earlier lows after another drawdown in LME inventories Wednesday. LME zinc stocks have fallen some 8% since the start of April.

In news, the European Union will make a final decision on bringing into force legislation to halve the import duty on aluminium by the first half of May.

In January, the European Commission proposed to cut the duties to 3% from 6% retroactively from Jan. 1, 2007, and to eliminate them altogether by 2009, but Germany, France and Spain opposed the initiative, driven by Poland.

The issue has been a source of contention in the E.U. since 1997, when non-E.U. aluminium producers first called on the E.U. to lower aluminium tariffs.

Also, South Korea's Posco said it has developed a new nickel-free stainless steel product, which is about 50% cheaper than current stainless steel products that contain nickel.

Compared to the cold-rolled stainless steel that is priced at KRW4.92 million ($5300) per metric ton, the nickel-free product is much cheaper at KRW2.30 million ($2480)/ton.