Base metal futures were mixed in Asian trade this afternoon, with tin up about 0.7% and nickel down about 0.7% at the time of writing.

Nickel had hit a one-year low on Friday on the London Metal Exchange and Dee Perera on Marex Spectron's LME desk labelled it "the underperformer so far this quarter, down 9%".

China's economy will be in focus this week with key monthly data due out Wednesday, Bloomberg noted.

Gold was just over US$1,210 an ounce on the spot market earlier, having lost about $10/oz on Friday following the US Federal Reserve decision to keep interest rates on hold this month ahead of a likely rise in December.  

Toronto's metals and mining sector closed lower on Friday with copper miner First Quantum Minerals (TSX: FM) closing 7.64% lower as the red metal price continued to slide.

However precious metals miner SSR Mining (TSX: SSRM) was up 6.73% in the wake of positive third quarter financial results, reporting it had more than doubled the cash generated from operations compared with the previous quarter.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 was in positive territory at the time of writing, as was the metals and mining sector.

The iron ore price is on the rise but miner Mineral Resources (ASX: MIN) was down about 2% in afternoon trade, after reporting an empty train had derailed in Western Australia's Goldfields yesterday, less than a week since BHP deliberately derailed a loaded, runaway ore train in the Pilbara.