Last week summary

Sunday news:

• China Manufacturing PMI fell to actual 51.6 (while forecast was 51.6)
• Tomorrow is the International Holiday. Labor Day, May the 1st.

Last Week’s Trade

Base metal prices on the London Metal Exchange were highly up at the end of trading in Friday April 28, with aluminium the only one to see a decline in price.
After steady increases across the board during premarket trading in Friday, base metals on the LME saw little change as it heads in to a three-day weekend.
One trader said: “Things have been fairly quiet today and for the last few days, but it is starting to pick up as we head into May.”

Friday: Copper hit highs of 5,750 per ton and finished trading up $43 on Thursday’s close. Nickel bounced back from a decline earlier in the week with a price hike of $120 per ton, while tin sits just $100 shy of the $20,000 per ton mark.

“Over the past month, copper inventories [on the LME] have fallen over 16%, while zinc is down 9%, lead 8% and aluminium 6%. All have had recent supply disruptions which may have impacted this.” (ANZ)

“Base metals bounced overnight with volumes improving compared with earlier this week, although lead and nickel are the only metals to register above average turnover.” (Marex Spectron)

The exchange will resume trading on Tuesday May 2 because of the May Day holiday on May 1.

Copper price – upwards trend 

The three-month copper price rose $43 to $5,735 per ton at the close of trading.

“Copper is starting to look up. Much of the overhang of speculative longs has been sharply reduced; this means it can react to news as it comes in.” (Ole Hansen)

Copper inventories fell a net 2,775 tons to 259,728 tons. Major copper producers BHP Billiton, Freeport-McMoRan and Antofagasta lowered their production forecasts for 2017 amid operation disruptions.(Metal Bulletin)

BHP Billiton has cut its copper production guidance for the 2017 financial year again because of the 44-day long strike at its Escondida mine in the first quarter, following a 2% reduction on its guidance in the fourth quarter of last year.

Aluminium price falls

The three-month aluminium price fell $12.50 but remained above the $1,900 per ton mark. It finished trading at $1,911 per ton. Aluminium stocks fell again by 7,325 tons to 1,945,357 tons. Nickel is starting to recover from sharp declines earlier in the week. It rose $105 per ton at Thursday’s finishing and saw an increase of $125 per ton in Friday. Nickel’s three-month price finished trading $120 per ton higher than Thursday’s end at $9,450. Inventories for nickel slipped 30 tons to 379,644 tons.

Zinc saw an increase of $26 to $2,623 per ton. Stocks rose 875 ton to 349,050 tons. The three-month lead price rose $44 to $2,249 per ton. Stocks fell 125 tons to 165,275 tons.

The three-month tin price increased by $75 to $19,900 per ton – it has been fluctuating between $19,800 and $19,900 per ton over the past month. Inventories rose 65 tons to 3,015 tons.