Copper prices HG-FT ended lower on Tuesday as jittery investors retreated from commodities and other riskier assets and sought safety in the dollar after ratings agency Fitch cut Greeces credit rating.

Copper for March delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchanges Comex division fell 4.40 cents (U.S.) to close at $3.1650 a pound, its lowest level on a settlement basis since Nov. 27.

On the London Metal Exchange, benchmark copper fell $19 to $6,980 a tonne.

The dollar rose against the euro for the third straight session on Tuesday as concerns about Greeces fiscal health and lingering fears about Dubais debt woes bolstered the U.S. currencys safe-haven status.

“If you dont have the appetite for risk, it is detrimental to equity markets and metals markets across the board,” said David Meger, vice president and director of metals trading with Vision Financial Markets in Chicago. “If anything, it reiterates the fact that the dollar remains the safe-haven currency.”

Helping offset better-than-expected U.S. jobs numbers last week, German data on Tuesday showed industry output unexpectedly fell in October in one of the worlds top exporters.

“That will impact the perceptions with respect to the physical supply and demand dynamic for some of the metals,” said Daniel Brebner, a London-based metals analyst at Deutsche Bank.

Funds, speculators, Chinese buying and improving economic data have helped copper prices to more than double this year.

Investors fleeing currency volatility, financial market turmoil and inflation pressures have also piled into industrial metals in recent months, seeking safety in hard assets.

Aluminum is up about 40 per cent, much less than copper, as a massive stockpile of the metal, coupled with poor demand, has weighed on the prices. Some analysts think the metal is now playing catch-up.

“Aluminum is being bought because its probably perceived as undervalued compared to copper,” analyst Robin Bhar at Calyon said, adding that the metal has broken a long consolidation range in which it was stuck since August.

“If youre a commodity hedge fund, youre going to look for what has not gone up much, then you would put your money into aluminum,” he said, but added that he did not expect a hefty price increase due to the metals weak fundamentals.

Aluminum AL-FT earlier climbed to a 13-month high of $2,190 a tonne, but the energy-intensive metal backtracked to end at $2,163, against Mondays $2,158 a tonne.

Inventories of aluminum, used in packaging, rose by 5,050 tonnes on Tuesday, bringing the total to 4.58 million tonnes, around 40,000 tonnes short of a record high it touched in September.

But traders say premiums are rising in various regions as a hefty part of the material is tied to financing deals, creating short-term shortages.

Nickel remained under pressure due to the high level of inventories at more than 143,000 tonnes – the highest since January, 1995, and less than 10,000 tonnes away from the record high of 151,254 tonnes seen in November, 1994.

Three-month nickel closed at $16,150 a tonne, up from Mondays $16,000 a tonne.

Battery material lead ended at $2,289 a tonne, up from $2,278, while zinc closed at $2,327, up from $2,307, and tin finished at $15,150 a tonne, up from $14,950.