Tin volumes lagging other LME base metals

Metal Recycling News  |  2012-10-31 15:49:37   |   By

Increased volume in tin has not kept pace with the higher average daily turnover in recent years for other base metals traded on the London Metal Exchange's Select trading platform, said Standard Bank in a daily commodity snippet.

LONDON (Scrap Monster): Increased volume in tin has not kept pace with the higher average daily turnover in recent years for other base metals traded on the London Metal Exchange's Select trading platform, said Standard Bank in a daily commodity snippet.


Average daily turnover of tin has risen from a daily average of 223 lots a day in 2007 to 337 so far this year.

According to Standard bank, a 50% increase in daily turnover over the past five years isn't too bad, however, compared to copper, which has seen daily turnover more than treble from 5,661 lots per day to 17,335 lots per day over the same period, tin looks to have been left behind.

Nickel turnover has risen nearly five-fold from 623 lots a day in 2007 to an average of 3,025. For investors to become more comfortable with tin, liquidity needs to pick up so entering and exiting positions does not have an undue impact on price, they added.

'Tuesday morning, for instance, saw prices rally over 2% on the back of just 33 lots. With liquidity and investor interest looking a bit like a Catch-22 situation, each needing the other to be in place first, tin looks like lagging behind the other LME metals for some time to come,' Standard bank concluded.