Bright Monday morning on LME; All Base metal prices slightly up
Overpassing the last week
Monday morning was a bright period, after last week’s price crashes. All base metal prices were slightly UP during morning trading on LME. Tin was the only one who had a price decline.
Firstly, copper started trading at $5,660 per ton after hitting a three-month low this time last week, as all other base metals followed its upward trend and saw slight price increases.
There has not been any immense movement in prices.
Secondly, investors are keeping a close on the outcome of the French presidential election.
“Presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen have won the first round of voting in the French election and will head into a run-off second round on May 7.”
“The base metals started to find some strength towards the end of last week but the buyers did not appear to be in any particular hurry. That may have happened due to uncertainty ahead of the French election,” William Adams, Metal Bulletin senior analyst, said. (Fast Markets)
Copper price rises as inventories fall
Following, three-month copper price rose by $37 to $5,660 per ton. While copper inventories dropped 3,550 ton to 264,850 ton, with 7,775 tons of freshly re-warranted copper. Anglo American has reported a 3% year-on-year drop in copper production during the first quarter of 2017.
Workers at Freeport-McMoRan’s Grasberg copper mine are said to be planning a month-long protest around the same time that exports are expected to resume. “All 9,000 union workers at the mine are expected to strike for the month of May, as they protest against staff cuts.” Chile’s Codelco has suspended operations at a concentrator plant at its Salvador copper mine after a supervisor died in an accident. The facility produced 60,000 tons of copper in 2016.
Base metal prices increased; Tin sank a bit
Three-month aluminium price was at $1,937 per ton this morning, a $4 increase on Friday’s close price. Aluminium Inventories were down 9,625 tons to 1,678,250 tons.
- Nickel price recovered slightly and saw a $10 increase to $9,355 per ton as it looks to make up for free falling prices earlier this month. Stocks for nickel fell by 450 tons to 380,495 tons.
- Three-month zinc rose by $6 as it looked to jump back above the $2,600 per ton mark. It is currently trading at $2,590.50 per ton. Zinc inventories fell 1,950 tons to 353,200 tons.
- “Data released by China’s NBS showed its domestic zinc production fell to 504,000 tons in March, the lowest level in a year as smelters conducted maintenance during the recent ore shortage.”
- Lead prices were up $4 to $2,146 per ton. Stocks were down 250 tons to 166,925 tons.
- Tin was the only base metal to see a decline; the three-month price fell $60 to $19,690 per ton.
- Inventories for tin fell 25 tons to 3,170 tons after staying unchanged for two trading days.
Currency moves and data releases
- The dollar index fell 0.72 to 99.03.
- Brent crude oil spot price rose by 0.85% to $52.36 per barrel.
- In equities, the FSTE 100 was up 108.09 to 7222.64.
- In data, the agenda is fairly light today with German Ifo business climate, UK CBI industrial order expectations and China’s CB leading index.
- In addition, US Federal Open Market Committee member Neel Kashkari is giving two speeches today.