The firm touched HK$64.65 ($8.31) in early trading, down from their HK$66.53 IPO price, before it ended its first trading day at HK$64.90.

Despite the sluggish start, Glencore Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg said he remained "bullish" on the company's potential. The world's biggest commodities trader by revenue raised about $10 billion ahead of the dual listing.

"We are still bullish with commodities and the strength in the commodities market," he told reporters at the firm's listing ceremony in Hong Kong.

"At the end of the day, the demand for commodities still continues robustly.

"The big question is whether the big mining companies in the world will continue to increase production to match the demand in Asia," said Glasenberg, who flew in from London.

Glasenberg rejected suggestions the listing's weak start was tied to a recent dip in commodities prices.

"We thought it was the time to become a public company, and this was just the time," he said, adding that "it's irrelevant the actual time of listing... The underlying market is still very strong."

Oil prices have slipped in recent weeks -- after touching two-year highs -- amid concerns over the global economy and easing demand, while gold has fallen about five percent from its record at the beginning of May.

Analysts said Glencore's weak debut was likely to have been partially caused by the sell-off in commodities recently but expressed confidence in its longer term performance.

"Ultimately, if the market becomes more bullish (on) commodities, which I suspect it will, we should see more interest in Glencore," Jeremy Friesen, a commodity analyst at lender Societe Generale in Hong Kong told AFP.

The Swiss company, which posted revenue of $145 billion in 2010, deals in a range of products including oil, coal, gold and foodstuffs, but also owns a number of mines worldwide. The dual listing values Glencore at nearly $60 billion.

Glencore shares in London sank to 525 pence ($8.49) by the close Tuesday, or 0.84 percent below their IPO price of 530 pence, despite the float being among the most anticipated of the year amid soaring commodities demand in Asia.

Glencore sold 31.25 million shares in the Hong Kong offer, with the retail portion representing just 2.5 percent of the total sale, while the remainder was sold in London.

It plans to use funds raised by the listing to pay down debt, boost its stake in Kazzinc, a zinc producer with core operations in eastern Kazakhstan, and finance other projects to expand its business.

The commodities behemoth has said it secured $3.1 billion from so-called cornerstone investors, including sovereign wealth funds in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, who have subscribed to 31 percent of the shares on offer.

The firm earlier described its secondary listing in Hong Kong as a means to build a "long-term mutually beneficial relationships" with the city's investors, and enable it to draw on demand from resource-hungry Asian markets, with China and India increasingly keen on resources to power their economies.

Founded in April 1974 by trader Marc Rich, Glencore operated initially out of an apartment in central Switzerland's Zug canton before quickly emerging as a major player in commodities trading.

From metals, minerals and crude oil, the group moved into agricultural goods and started in the late 1980s to expand into mine ownership.

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