Proposed changes to the London Metal Exchange's market structure may actually have the opposite effect to its desired intention: destroying liquidity, not increasing it.Attention has been focused on the proposed permanent closure of the LME ring, the incentivization of electronic trade and changes to margin methodology, which were central issues in the exchange's recently closed discussion paper.B...Read More

The Shanghai Futures Exchange's plans to list ferro-chrome futures, potentially this year, will bring welcomed hedging opportunities and may weaken the dominance of China's stainless steel mills in the ore and alloy markets, participants told Fastmarkets.While no definite date or specifications of the ferro-chrome futures have been announced, Fastmarkets asked participants what changes these contr...Read More

Usually after a London Metal Exchange discussion paper there is a decent idea of what the outcome is likely to be. But this time around, it seems much harder to tell which path the LME will take. The proposals under debate include the permanent closure of the exchange's open outcry trading floor, known as the ring, which dates back to 1877. They also include the incentivization of electronic trade...Read More

Aluminium's futures price traded close to its 2021 year-to-date high at the close of trading on the London Metal Exchange on Tuesday April 13, while most metals recovered their losses from Monday because of a tumble in the US Dollar Index.The three-month price of aluminium closed at $2,993 per tonne at 5pm, but had reached $2,295 per tonne during trading, just $6 per tonne below its year-to-date h...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were largely trading sideways during the morning session on Tuesday April 13, after decreases across the board on Monday due to warnings out of China about rising commodity prices.The three-month aluminium price bucked the trend however, rising by 0.8% to $2,280.50 per tonne as at 9am on Tuesday, from a closing price on Monday of $2,262 per tonne. Th...Read More

Base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were down across the board this morning, Tuesday April 13, as were most of the metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, while broader markets were quiet.China's trade data showed imports and exports grew, highlighting broad-based economic recovery Markets waiting for the release of United States consumer prices today and to see how that will a...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key North American steel forecast highlights:?EUR? There is no end in sight to the shortfall in flat steel supply that has characterized US markets in early 2021, and we expect record-high US pricing for hot-rolled coil to persist through the second quarter of 2021 and into the second half of the year. We are fo...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.In both Europe and the United States, the prices of most flat steel products have pushed to record highs in the weeks to Monday March 22. They remain slightly below their mid-2008 peaks in China, but are at multi-year highs there too.This illustrates in part the heavier consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for steelmakers in...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.Chinese seamless linepipe prices have jumped by $120 per tonne over the past month because of rising costs. With iron ore prices remaining elevated, scrap costs on the rise, and activity at steel mills curbed by environmental measures, steel billet has become difficult to source, bolstering the prices for seamless linep...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. This month's key North American steel forecast highlights: US hot-rolled coil prices continued to move in line with our forecasts in February, although actual prices again modestly exceeded our forecasts. Domestic HRC prices averaged $1,194 per ton in February, exceeding our forecast price of $1,150 per ton for the month. U...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:?EUR?  Impressive advances in ore and alloy prices persisted in March, with most markets posting significant price gains. Strengthening demand from steelmakers along with supply shortages and depleted inventories in numerous markets, as well as freight and transportation...Read More

Inner Mongolia, China's ferro-chrome production heartland, has imposed restrictions on its metallurgical sector in a move that has fueled the high-carbon ferro-chrome markets in China and Europe, and although this may ease off, the gains were unlikely to be lost while alloy ramp-ups continue, sources have told Fastmarkets.The decision to restrict energy consumption in Inner Mongolia since December...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.This month's key ferro-alloy forecast highlights:?EUR?In a strong start to the year, January saw ore and alloy pricing gains across all markets priced by Fastmarkets - with the exception of Chinese silicon metal export prices, which retreated slightly last month after posting impressive gains in December 2020.The combination...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.With nickel prices down by almost 20% over the space of around ten days during late February and early March, one might have been expecting us to be reporting sharply-lower prices of stainless steel, at least for the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel.This is not the case, at least in Europe and the Unite...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.We spoke in our previous tracker of stainless steel prices ending 2020 on a high. That trend has continued during early 2021 and, in fact, the upward rally in prices has increased its momentum.Compared with the monthly price increase of some 5% seen at the end of 2020, prices for grade-304 stainless steel in al...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts is ready to view.Prices of stainless steel are generally set to reach highs for the year as 2020 comes to a close. For the most common nickel-containing grades of stainless steel, this upward trend is being driven above all by rising nickel prices, which themselves are hitting relatively high levels into the end of 2020.The price increases si...Read More

Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.Demand for copper — already on a rising trend — is arguably set to explode as the energy transition takes hold. In order to prevent structural deficits, unsustainably high prices and demand destruction, miners will have to...Read More

Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.Copper will play a pivotal role in the energy transition. Aluminium may be an abundant and cheap competitor for electrification applications, but carbon footprint issues for primary metal may give copper the edge. Ultimately that poin...Read More

Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.We enter 2021 with many mined commodity prices riding high after recovering from a dramatic pandemic-induced slump in H1 2020. But far from marking a new atmosphere of positivity, the new year brings new questions. How will Chinese po...Read More

Access our research platformsSign-in to our platforms to access our extensive research, our latest insight, data and analytics and to connect to our industry experts.As the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic began to bite, many observers confidently predicted that the end was nigh for global economic activity. Governments around the world closed their economies as the only tool available to li...Read More