Can gold keep rallying? The simple answer is yes, although of course, there is the jobs number at 8:30 a.m. EDT that can be a help or hindrance. According to the charts, gold has room to run another $20 before seeing any real resistance. That move can come slowly or all at once, depending on what the job numbers say today. The action in the metals has been better over the last week and the rally s...Read More
The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Friday July 6.Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mixed at the close of trading on Thursday July 5, pressured by macroeconomic uncertainty amid continued sell-offs in copper, zinc and tin prices. Read more in our live futures report.Here are how prices looked at the close of trading:Metals packager Ball Corp plans to cease product...Read More
The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Friday July 6.Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mixed at the close of trading on Thursday July 5, pressured by macroeconomic uncertainty amid continued sell-offs in copper, zinc and tin prices. Read more in our live futures report.Here are how prices looked at the close of trading:Metals packager Ball Corp plans to cease product...Read More
The latest news and price moves to start the Asian day on Friday July 6.Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were mixed at the close of trading on Thursday July 5, pressured by macroeconomic uncertainty amid continued sell-offs in copper, zinc and tin prices. Read more in our live futures report.Here are how prices looked at the close of trading:Metals packager Ball Corp plans to cease product...Read More
After a two-year period of super-fast growth, the expansion of London Metal Exchange warehouses in Asia slowed significantly over the past year. But what lies behind the change - especially as LME storage space in Europe has also continued to dwindle? Warehouse space at the nine LME delivery locations in Asia grew by just 3% to 1,608,813 sq m in the year to June 2018, largely due t...Read More
Nickel prices on the London Metal Exchange fell by 1.7% at the close of trading on Friday July 6, ending the week more than 4% lower while ongoing macroeconomic pressure continues to hinder the complex. Closing below $14,000 per tonne for the first time since April 13, nickel prices continued to suffer against a backdrop of falling LME inventory. Total LME nickel stocks are at their lowest si...Read More
Katoen Natie Singapore (Jurong) Pte Ltd has withdrawn from London Metal Exchange warehouse services with immediate effect, with the operator and name of the shed switching to Henry Bath Singapore, the LME said on Friday July 6. The Belgian-based logistics provider had listed Singapore as an LME-approved warehouse in November 2016 and had only 75 tonnes of stock in May, according to the latest inve...Read More
Key data from the pricing session in the week ending Friday July 6. China Most of the ferro-chrome smelters in Inner Mongolia that were idled have restarted, which weighed on Chinese ferro-chrome prices. Increased domestic supply subdued demand for imported charge...Read More
China's domestic spot battery-grade lithium carbonate prices fell on Thursday July 5 due to continued weak demand and the availability of cheaper material; hydroxide prices held steady with most producers maintaining their offers although lower prices are starting to be offered. Chinese lithium carbonate prices fell on lower consumption Cheaper battery and industrial-grade carbonate prices o...Read More
The tentacles of US sanctions may be starting to reach further afield, special correspondent Andrea Hotter muses in the latest Hotter on Metals column. Earlier this week on Tuesday July 3, producer and trading company Glencore said it had received a subpoena from the US Department of Justice to produce documents and other records related to a money laundering probe. Sanctions were not mentioned, b...Read More
The tentacles of US sanctions may be starting to reach further afield, special correspondent Andrea Hotter muses in the latest Hotter on Metals column. Earlier this week on Tuesday July 3, producer and trading company Glencore said it had received a subpoena from the US Department of Justice to produce documents and other records related to a money laundering probe. Sanctions were not mentioned, b...Read More
The UK light iron scrap market finally moved up this week, breaking a 12-week run of stability due to firmer demand and the conclusion of the July monthly delivery settlements to consumers next week.Metal Bulletin's weekly price assessment for UK grade-5C ferrous scrap on an inter-merchant basis was ?95-125 ($126-165) per tonne on Friday. This compares with the low for the year to date of ?90-11...Read More
Global steel scrap prices softened in the week ended Friday July 6, amid a fall in demand across most regions. Turkey booked no new deep-sea cargoes and the Indian market was also quiet, while prices on the East Coast of the United States remained flat due to a lack of deals.Bucking the trend, prices in Taiwan edged upward with improved demand, after there being no changes last week.Turkey imports...Read More
The Turkish steel producers extended their absence from the deep-sea scrap market on Friday July 6 because of weak demand for finished steel products, but they are expected to come back for August cargoes soon.The sluggish rebar demand in the country's domestic and export markets has kept the mills out of the deep-sea scrap markets since the end of last week.The domestic rebar market was expected...Read More
Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were mixed on the morning of Friday July 6, with nickel (-0.8%), zinc (+1.1%) and aluminium (+0.3%) the main movers, while copper at $6,326 per tonne and tin at $19,455 per tonne were little changed. That said, copper did spike down to a low of $6,221.50 per tonne at around 4am London time.Volume has been high with 16,267 lots traded as a...Read More
China's domestic spot battery-grade lithium carbonate prices fell on Thursday July 5 due to continued weak demand and the availability of cheaper material; hydroxide prices held steady with most producers maintaining their offers although lower prices are starting to be offered. Chinese lithium carbonate prices fell on lower consumption Cheaper battery and industrial-grade carbonate prices o...Read More
Prices for some coated steel coil products in Turkey increased in the week ended Friday July 6 but demand in the local market was only moderate, Metal Bulletin has heard.Domestic pricesOne producer in northern Turkey reduced its coated coil prices by $10 per tonne during the week.The producer is now offering 0.50mm hot-dipped galvanized coil (HDG) at $770 per tonne ex-works, down from $775 per ton...Read More
In the face of increasingly volatile markets in Asia, it is becoming more and more crucial for participants to engage in hedging to cut their risks of incurring losses, industry sources told Metal Bulletin."Hedging is very important as sharp fluctuations in spot prices can happen outside of the more normal market forces of supply and demand," GFI Group steel derivatives broker Henry Herbert said.U...Read More
As steel markets grow in maturity and look towards the use of derivatives and hedging tools, it is probably a good time to consider how hedging can increase the transparency of steel pricing and reducing the risks of volatile price trends. Steel trading has traditionally been based on fixed spot prices, with no long-term contracts between buyers and sellers to ensure stability of supply. And trade...Read More
The price of US domestic rebar will remain unchanged due to a lack of market activity, while import prices have dipped on the Section 232 tariffs on steel imports from Canada, Mexico, and the EU, which have effectively priced foreign products out of domestic markets.American Metal Market's price for US domestic rebar remained at $35-36 per hundredweight ($700-720 per ton), according to the la...Read More