Base metals rebound, copper goes through the ceiling

LONDON (Scrap Monster) : The entire base metal pack closed convincingly higher on the London Metal Exchange (LME) Friday, cheered by the positive US unemployment data and the ECB interest rate cut decision.

At the close of open-outcry trading, LME three-month copper was up some 6.2 per cent on the day at $US7,270 a metric ton. Copper is still down 8% year to date, but is up sharply from 18-month lows of $3.06 hit on Wednesday. Nickel prices too jumped sharply.

The session saw recovery in prices of all the beaten-down base metals. Analysts see the up move as a short covering rally from the extremely oversold regions. The big question remains as to whether the rally will sustain. Advisory firms recommend sell into rallies strategy in the week ahead.

The stimuli for the rebound were many. Firstly the news on European Central Bank (ECB) lowering its main rate by a quarter of a percentage to record low of 0.5% and assurance of  further policy action to support the debt-ridden Euro zone economies was taken positive by the commodities market. Adding to it were the positive data that came out of the US. The jobless claims falling to multi-year lows and a considerable fall in the US unemployment rate boosted the rally.

The only bad news that came in was the disappointing manufacturing data that came out of China, the biggest consumer of industrial metals. The Chinese purchasing managers index (PMI) dipped to 50.6 in April from 50.9 in March, raising concerns of a slowdown in the Chinese economic growth.

Here’s a wrap up of the price movement of base metals on LME, as on Friday (3^rd May, 2013)

3 Months Metal Bid-Ask Change from Thursday PM kerb

Copper            7270.0-7275.0             Up       422.5

Lead                2038.0-2039.0             Up       97

Zinc                 1884.5-1885.0             Up       66.5

Aluminum       1882.0-1883.0             Up      71

Nickel              15220.0-15225.0         Up       540

Tin                   20450.0-20500.0         Up       800

Aluminum Alloy 1750.0-1760.0         Up       5

Aluminum Alloy-NASAAC 1795.0-1805.0 Up 60

Note:-  The above prices are in dollar per metric ton.