15 October 2024: Data on LME COTR speculative positions (for the week ending 11 October) were released this afternoon. The data showed that there was a shift in investor sentiment, with net positions falling for all the base metals, except nickel. Moreover, long liquidation dominated for aluminium, copper, lead and zinc. By contrast, nickel saw […]
October 15, 2024 - Dan Smith
24 September 2024: The LME base metals complex saw mixed price trends in the past year, with aluminium, copper and zinc all up, while tin prices soared. The OECD countries saw sharp falls in inflation and US interest rates were cut, helping to boost financial markets and commodities more generally. Speculative positions have increased for […]
September 26, 2024 - Dan Smith
11 September 2024: LME three-month copper prices rallied into mid-May, but have fallen significantly since then. The biggest problem for bulls is that the Chinese economy continues to struggle, and demand is not growing as quickly as expected. Another challenge is that mine supply growth has picked up in Chile and the DRC is booming, […]
September 12, 2024 - Dan Smith
24 July 2024: Base metal prices are driven by a combination of fundamental and technical drivers. One important part of technical analysis is to understand and predict market momentum. In this piece we set out our method for back testing and modelling momentum, looking at all the popular models used in financial markets, including MACD, […]
July 25, 2024 - Dan Smith
18 June 2024: Base metal prices rallied in the first half of this year, but we believe that the rally is overdone, given the state of fundamentals, where investors are positioned and seasonality charts. Chinese demand was strong in Q1, but weakened into Q2. In many cases this fed through into higher domestic inventory levels […]
June 19, 2024 - Dan Smith
Our Head of Research was invited to speak at the 121 mining conference in London, where he was talking about the outlook for copper, nickel and tin. Please find his latest talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDEFvBmiSig
May 24, 2024 - Dan Smith
25 April 2024: Base metal prices have soared in the past month, with additional sanctions on Russia combining with improving fundamentals. The LME was forced to act twice in April to impose restrictions on Russian metal deliveries and then to tighten rules around rent-sharing deals to maintain liquidity. This has created a confusing picture of […]
April 29, 2024 - Dan Smith
12 April 2024: After a weak start to 2024, base metal prices jumped in March and early April, mainly driven by speculative forces. There are three reasons to believe that prices look overextended. First, net speculative positions look very high for copper and tin and rallies in nickel and zinc look difficult to justify given […]
April 15, 2024 - Dan Smith
19 March 2024: LME nickel prices have outperformed the rest of the base metals complex in the past month, with fundamentals starting to tighten. The market was in significant oversupply in 2023, but this drove prices down to rock bottom levels and producers then reacted quickly by cutting output. Also bullish is that nickel demand […]
March 20, 2024 - Dan Smith