Sail (down 4.79%), Jindal Steel & Power (down 4.58%), JSW Steel (down 2.57%), Hindalco Industries (down 2.48%), Sterlite Industries (down 2.3%), Hindustan Zinc (down 1.8%), Sesa Goa (down 1.8%), Tata Steel (down 1.6%), Nalco (down 1.57%), NMDC (down 0.9%) and Bhushan Steel (down 0.19%), edged lower.
The BSE Metal index was down 2.42% at 10091.05. It underperformed the Sensex, which was down 0.93% at 16760.08.
The BSE Metal index had outperformed the market over the past one month until 24 July 2012, falling 0.04% compared with the Sensex's 0.32% fall. The index had, however, underperformed the market in past one quarter, sliding 6.11% as against 1.68% fall in the Sensex.
China is the world's largest consumer of copper and aluminum.
China's growth rate is set to moderate to around 8% this year due to measures by the authorities to cool the economy, and the global slowdown, said International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists in their latest assessment of the world's second-largest economy.