Copper prices in London extended their fall to the third consecutive session on Tuesday as concerns about demand in top consumer China and uncertainty about timing of interest-rate cuts worsened speculative sentiment towards industrial metals.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell 0.9% to $8,948.5 per metric ton by 0959 GMT, after breaking below its 200-day moving average at $8,998.

Aluminium was down 1.2% at $2,224.5 a ton after hitting $2,220 for its lowest since March 6.

Chinese leaders signalled on Tuesday the stimulus measures needed to reach this year's economic growth target will be directed at consumers, deviating from their usual playbook of pouring funds into infrastructure projects.

Signs of plenty of metals for the nearby supply, continued woes of China's housing sector, the lack of a meaningful recovery in its macro data and the lack of stimulus measures which would target the metals-consuming industries keep metals prices under pressure, said Standard Chartered analyst Sudakshina Unnikrishnan.

The sell-off in metals could accelerate if China's factory activity data due on Wednesday shows a decline from the previous month, said Sandeep Daga, a director at Metal Intelligence Centre.

The broader markets traded cautiously ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting, pricing almost no chance of a U.S. rate cut this week, but having fully priced a 25-basis-point reduction in the Fed Funds rate for September.

Copper, used in power and construction, is down 19% since a rally triggered by short covering and speculators' bets on a potential long-term shortage of copper in the green energy transition took it to a record high of $11,104.50 on May 20.

Money managers' net long positions on COMEX copper fell to 19,515 contracts on July 23 from 75,342 contracts on May 21, exchange data showed.

However, suggesting that miners remain optimistic about copper's longer-term prospects, global miner BHP Group and Lundin Mining said they would buy Filo Corp, which is yet to start production at a copper deposit it develops in Latin America, for $3.25 billion.

Zinc was down 0.3% at $2,629, lead declined 1.0% to $2,046.5, tin dropped 1.9% to $28,745 and nickel rose 0.6% to $15,935.

(Reporting by Polina Devitt in London; additional reporting by Mai Nguyen in Hanoi; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Mrigank Dhaniwala)