Base Metals: Weekly Market Tracker provides a unique, independent and authoritative market and price overview of the base metals industry.
The analysis includes short-term technical analysis highlighting key trading opportunities across the entire base metals complex and market price forecasts extended to cover the full contract range being offered by the LME - three years forward for copper, aluminium, aluminium alloy, zinc, nickel, lead and tin.
It also features supply and demand balances expanded to include data for major regions.
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31 May 2013
Chinese apparent consumption of refined copper has fallen steeply in year-on-year terms so far in 2013. Are our forecasts for positive growth of 5-6% for the full year still achievable? We think so.
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13 May 2013
MBR maintained its strong track record in MB’s Apex surveys of analyst price predictions, featuring in the top five leaderboards for Q1 2013 in aluminium, nickel tin and zinc.
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24 April 2013
Reduced capital spending by the mining industry has contributed to Caterpillar recording a 45% drop in Q1 earnings. Is this another negative story pointing to the end of the so-called commodities supercycle? Not necessarily.
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More breaking views...
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18 June 2013
On balance there is room for a rebound in the short term, but the Fed’s statement this week concerning its commitment to QE will be key.
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18 June 2013
After a spell of short covering, short positions have been rebuilt across the board again in anticipation of the Fed confirming QE tapering this week.
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18 June 2013
The speed with which aluminium prices gave back their gains suggests the rally was driven by short-covering and relative value traders taking their cue from lead. It was telling that there no follow through buying in aluminium. That said, we expect good support around the $1,800/tonne area and overall we expect further range trading.
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18 June 2013
Rallies failed and prices pulled back again, sharply so in some cases, though only nickel made new year-to-date lows. We would wait for technical indicators to turn higher with the aim of trading the rebounds.
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18 June 2013
The pull-back in price makes copper look vulnerable. However, it is still comfortably above the May lows, so it may just be consolidation. On balance, we continue to expect further range-trading in the $7,000-7,700/tonne band. Premiums we expect to rise in the short term and TC/RCs to fall.
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18 June 2013
The tightness in the spread, which triggered one of the strongest rallies in the base metals, may dissipate now, at least for a while, but it is likely to return. This should keep prices underpinned overall.
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18 June 2013
The fundamentals have caught up with nickel prices, but these low prices are likely to prompt further cutbacks that should in time tighten up the fundamentals again. The latest step in the downtrend that has run since February, may not be finished yet. That said, we would not chase prices lower as there are reasons to think that we are close to a bottom now. We would look for a rebound to trade.
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18 June 2013
Prices followed the other metals lower last week, but they did run into some buying on Friday. They now need to attract follow-through interest. The focus of the market is on Indonesia and how much exports will fall once new quality control regulations are introduced on July 1.
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18 June 2013
Like lead, zinc prices rallied strongly, but they have also fallen back steeply. There is some tightness in China as traders look at doing financing deals with zinc, instead of copper, which the authorities have clamped down on. That said, the fundamentals are not tight, so we expect a range trading market to continue.
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18 June 2013
Demand indicators for the base metals market
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18 June 2013
Downloadable data for week June 18 2013