4 February 2025: Data on LME COTR speculative positions (for the week ending 31 January) were released this afternoon. The data shows that net positions saw mixed trends, as markets started to react to the threat of fresh US tariffs. Fresh longs dominated for lead, but fresh shorts dominated for aluminium, nickel and zinc. Copper saw significant long liquidation.
The data also shows that copper, tin and zinc were neither overbought nor oversold, with net speculation close to the middle of the historical range (see Table 2). Aluminium looks slightly overbought. By contrast, lead and nickel look oversold, with positions in the bottom 20% of the five-year range, showing limited scope for further speculative selling.
We use the trend in the categories “Investment Funds” and “Other Financial Institutions” combined for this report, because this total has a close correlation with LME price trends. The report is here: https://amt.co.uk/amt-insight-lme-cotr-follow-the-money/.
