LIVE FUTURES REPORT 24/11: Copper sets new year-to-date high, others follow upward

The three-month red metal price jumped to $7,311.50 per tonne at 9am London time on Tuesday, surpassing a closing price of $7,305 per tonne on June 8, 2018.

This also marked a 1.9% increase from Monday’s closing price of $7,177.50 per tonne, which was down by 1.4% from last Friday’s closing price.

“Sentiment remains bullish with LME copper setting fresh highs for the year this morning, but while the trend is your friend and all the metals are in uptrends, some of the metals are starting to look tired,” Fastmarkets head of base metals and battery research Will Adams said.

Echoing a sentiment he has been sharing for the last few days, Adams added that “while we are bullish over the medium and long term, our concern remains that prices may have run ahead of the fundamentals and are vulnerable to a correction”.

Such a correction happened to a certain extent on Monday, when the three-month prices for copper, aluminium, nickel, tin and zinc decreased by between 0.8% and 2%.

Following copper’s cue today, nickel rose by 2% to $16,245 per tonne while aluminium rose by 0.3% to $1,980 per tonne. LME aluminium stocks fell by 3,275 tonnes on Tuesday, with the majority of this – 3,250 tonnes – leaving sheds in Port Klang, Malaysia.

After having the biggest drop on Monday, the three-month zinc price rebounded on Tuesday with a 0.3% increase to $2,738.50 per tonne. The zinc price had closed at $2,729.50 per tonne on Monday, a sharp drop of around 2% from its close last Friday at $2,780 per tonne.

Other highlights

• US president-elect Joe Biden plans to nominate former Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen to become Treasury Secretary. She would be the first female treasury secretary, after being the first women to ever head the Federal Reserve.
• The US dollar index was recently at 92.23, a slight 0.4% decrease from 92.60 at 5.15pm London time on Monday.
• The Brent Crude oil price was at $46.25 per barrel, a 0.7% increase from at $45.91 per barrel on Monday evening, when it rallied up 3.5%.
• Similarly, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil price had an increase of 1% to $43.40 per tonne from its price on Monday evening of to $42.96 per barrel.