Bullish for 2018 The base metals have started 2018 in consolidation mode after frenzied rallies at the end of 2017. The fact that manufacturing data still looks robust, that supply disruptions are being threatened, that the Fed remains dovish and that China’s financial conditions have loosened, suggests the backdrop for the base metals remains bullish overall. This supports our expectations f...Read More

Gold prices have been on a tear since Bitcoin fell $4,300 from its all-time high of more than $19,000 in mid-December.Since Dec. 11, the price of an ounce of gold has climbed from $1,242 to $1,313 today (Jan. 9), for a gain of 5.72% over one month.And this run-up is just the beginning to a gold bull market.In fact, Money Morning Resource Specialist Peter Krauth believes gold prices will rise to...Read More

Significant LME and SHFE price rises in 2017... On the back of the Chinese government’s clean-up of illegal capacity and its winter heating season production cuts in order to protect air quality, aluminium prices on both the LME and SHFE had significant increases in 2017. The LME aluminium price finished the year with a remarkable 30.8% increase while the SHFE aluminium price rose 18.5%, a le...Read More

Aluminium Aluminium is consolidating after extending to a fresh five-year high at $2,290.50 per tonne on December 29. With prices below $2,200 per tonne, immediate support at $2,215 per tonne from the October 26 and November 1 double-top has failed, but the daily candlesticks imply indecision. Although prices are drifting lower, they remain in high ground. The RSI has eased to 59 from an overbough...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ?Nonferrous metals traded higher this afternoon with zinc and nickel rising over 1%. Lead and copper were up close to 1%, while tin and aluminium edged down slightly.Ferrous metals were firm today with iron ore leading the gain with over 3% rise. Coking coal moved higher by 1.7%, while hot-rolled coil and rebar rose over 1%. Coke also traded up slightly.Copper: SHFE copp...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ?Nonferrous metals traded higher this afternoon with zinc and nickel rising over 1%. Lead and copper were up close to 1%, while tin and aluminium edged down slightly.Ferrous metals were firm today with iron ore leading the gain with over 3% rise. Coking coal moved higher by 1.7%, while hot-rolled coil and rebar rose over 1%. Coke also traded up slightly.Copper: SHFE copp...Read More

Consolidation after 12.4 percent year-end rally Copper prices rallied sharply between December 6 and 28, reaching a fresh multi-year high of $7,312.50 per tonne, from the month’s low of $6,507.50 per tonne, a gain of 12.4 percent. Given there was a general strong move across the metals, copper’s price rally was not copper-specific. It appears that there was a surge of interest to increas...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ?Nonferrous metals traded higher this afternoon with zinc and nickel rising over 1%. Lead and copper were up close to 1%, while tin and aluminium edged down slightly.Ferrous metals were firm today with iron ore leading the gain with over 3% rise. Coking coal moved higher by 1.7%, while hot-rolled coil and rebar rose over 1%. Coke also traded up slightly.Copper: SHFE copp...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM) – SMM surveys major Chinese producers in the base metals market every month to get first-hand production data. The following table shows the latest output in December and our forecast for January.CopperChina’s copper output rose in December as some large producers looked to hit their annual production target at the year-end. Qingyuan Jiangxi Copper and Shandong Hu...Read More

Price working higher, approaching October 2017 high Given Glencore’s Lady Loretta restart announcements in December, it is interesting that lead prices have continued to work higher. But lead has underperformed sister metal zinc, which has seen fresh 10-year highs. The upward trend in lead prices has recently been given a boost by the cold weather and snow that has hit the North-East USA and...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM) – SMM surveys major Chinese producers in the base metals market every month to get first-hand production data. The following table shows the latest output in December and our forecast for January.CopperChina’s copper output rose in December as some large producers looked to hit their annual production target at the year-end. Qingyuan Jiangxi Copper and Shandong Hu...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM) – SMM surveys major Chinese producers in the base metals market every month to get first-hand production data. The following table shows the latest output in December and our forecast for January.CopperChina’s copper output rose in December as some large producers looked to hit their annual production target at the year-end. Qingyuan Jiangxi Copper and Shandong Hu...Read More

U.S. equity index futures were higher this morning. S&P 500 futures were up 2 points in pre-opening trade.The Canadian Dollar was virtually unchanged following release of Canadian December Housing report. Starts at 8:15 AM EST. Consensus was 211,000 versus 251,000 in November. Actual was 217,000.Target gained $2.40 to $69.58 after raising its fiscal fourth quarter profit and sales estimatesUnd...Read More

Nickel prices rallied well ahead of the fundamentals during LME Week when the market got carried away by the prospects for demand from the electric vehicle (EV) market. Having set a high of $13,030 per tonne, prices corrected to $10,740, which felt justified given increased ore shipments from Indonesia and the Philippines. Prices have since rebounded back above to $12,000 per tonne but this move i...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ? Nickel ore exports from the Philippines to China were expected to be 720,000 wmt, or 6,600 mt in Ni content, according to SMM research. This is down 76% from volumes seen in November.The slump was mainly led by the raining season in Surigao region while shipments in Palawan and Zambales only rose slightly. Shipments from Tawi-Tawi region was stable.On quality breakdown...Read More

The following is a summary of our recent podcast interview with Gary Dorsch on Stocks, Commodities, which can be accessed on our site here or on iTunes here. We've witnessed remarkable stock market performance in the last year and a half, with the Dow Industrials and S&P 500 not experiencing a 3 percent or greater pullback during this parabolic rally. "This has never h...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ?Cooper: While LME copper sees temporary support at $7,100/mt, the SHFE copper is expected to trade downwards to 54,000 yuan/mt. However, the implementation of copper scrap policy and the expected supply tightness of concentrate would limit the down side. LME copper is expected to trade at $7,090-7,150/mt today and the SHFE 1803 contract is to trade at 54,300-54,900 yuan...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ? The operating rates at zinc smelters in December dropped 4.16 percentage points from the previous month with companies of all sizes seeing declines.Even though some smelters have come out of their maintenance schedules and Hunan Kingstone Mining has resumed its production, overall output was down over 20,000 mt from November, according to SMM research.Shorter supply of...Read More

SHANGHAI, Jan 9 (SMM)? 1/4 ?Cooper: While LME copper sees temporary support at $7,100/mt, the SHFE copper is expected to trade downwards to 54,000 yuan/mt. However, the implementation of copper scrap policy and the expected supply tightness of concentrate would limit the down side. LME copper is expected to trade at $7,090-7,150/mt today and the SHFE 1803 contract is to trade at 54,300-54,900 yuan...Read More

Quiet start to 2018... Tin was fairly quiet on the LME during the first trading week of 2018 as industrial metals experienced some profit-taking after investors overextended their long positioning in final week of 2017. The global macroeconomic backdrop remains robust, however, and we believe the stronger tone to metal prices will continue. ...but tin has some catching up to do For tin specificall...Read More