Last week’s review (LME)
Base metal prices
After seeing a two-days smashing on the close, May the 5th was a widely better for base metals in the afternoon trade.
3-months nickel price went up on $125 per tonne; as it tried to compensate some of its biggest declines this week.
Friday’s copper’s price was fairly plane and was consolidating around the $5,540 per tonne mark. That was despite further LME inventory growth in friday, which brought the increase of stock over the last couple days to over 100,000 tonnes.
Copper market was impacted by the China’s financial tightening these days. It had a big impact on all the copper weekly prices.
“Friday’s base metal prices were soft but mostly holding above the lows established in Thursday. LME copper stocks increased another 37,000 tonnes. Noteworthy, these deliveries were largely priced. Seems like another tranche of merchant deliveries from Chinese smelter offtakes,”
Zinc and aluminium prices saw small increases, whilst lead and tin prices declined.
Copper falls slightly
Friday:
The three-month copper price saw a small decline of $2.50 to $5,540.50 per tonne. Copper did hit highs of $5,591 earlier in the say as it looked to consolidate after a $202 per tonne drops earlier in the week. Copper inventories rose a net 36,800 tonnes to 354,650 tonnes – the highest since October 2016. This follows rises of 32,925 tonnes yesterday and 31,250 tonnes on Wednesday. In supply news, Anglo American is taking steps to restart operations promptly at its El Soldado copper mine in Chile.
Nickel increased after two-day low trends
The three-month nickel price picked up $125 at the kerb – it finished trading at $9,140 per tonne. Nevertheless its positive increase at the close, nickel hit lows of $8,905 at one point in the day. Nickel had declined $555 per tonne over the past couple days during premarket trading but picked back up on friday afternoon.
Stocks were up 210 tonnes to 380,712 tonnes.
“Nickel led the sector lower as the market reacted to the failure of the Philippines environment minister to be confirmed by lawmakers. Ms Lopez had been spearheading the closure of the nickel mining industry due to new environmental laws.” (ANZ Research)
Market participants saw the appointment of Lopez as Department of Environment and Natural Resources secretary as a glimmer of hope for nickel prices amid a weakened Chinese stainless steel sector and a number of China-backed nickel pig iron projects coming on stream in Indonesia. (FastMarkets)
Base metals start to consolidate:
The three-month aluminium price was up $4 to $1,917 per tonne, after seeing little price movement this week. Aluminium stocks fell 10,200 tonnes to 1,599,725 tonnes. Zinc closed trading at $2,582 per tonne, an increase of $13. Stocks for zinc were down 2,025 tonnes to 340,450 tonnes.
The three-month lead price was down $10 to $2,181 per tonne. Inventories fell 255 tonnes to 173,725 tonnes.
The three-month tin price dropped $275 per tonne after being unchanged this morning. It closed trading at $19,575 per tonne. Stocks for tin remain around their lowest since 1980, falling another 140 tonnes today to 2,490 tonnes.
US data released was largely in line with estimates, suggesting the economy continues to expand at a moderate pace, with the labour market continuing to tighten.
In the blockbuster April job’s report, 211,000 Americans entered the workforce. Which is above the 194,000 estimate and a recovery from March’s figure of 98,000. As a result, the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.4%.