Nickel stable at lower levels
The copper price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) moves in spheres which have not been seen in almost a decade. The aluminium future is also on a high level. The increasing recovery in the global economy during the continuing pandemic will certainly play a role, but the speculative interest in these high turnover industrial metals should not be underestimated.
The weakness of the US-dollar against other key currencies at the moment also certainly plays a role, as raw materials quoted in US-dollar are relatively cheaper. Central banks continue to pump huge amounts of cheap money into the markets and so create incentives or market distortions. Negative and zero interest rates make it difficult to find lucrative investment possibilities and so vast flows of money are finding their way into stock and commodity markets.
This, however, does not apply analogously to nickel, as seen in the last price correction. The high levels once seen of USD 50,000.00/mt and more are still far off, despite electric mobility fantasies, and would also certainly not be healthy. The futures market, tending to be relatively tight, is not for weak nerves, nor certainly anything for greenhorns and young speculators. However, the nickel price could clearly stabilise on the lower level, as expected in this publication. Support for the market remains around USD 16,000.00/mt. There have been, therefore, no breaks on the downside. The alloy and battery metal is at the time of writing trading around USD 16,200.00/mt.
