Base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were predominantly down during Asian morning trading on Tuesday January 22, with the complex reversing the previous day’s gains. Tin, as was the case on Monday, bucked the trend – but this time to the upside.

South32 achieved record production from its manganese assets in its 2015 financial year, it said in its full-year earnings report.

With the exception of lead and tin, three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were for the most part under downward pressure over the final trading days of 2018.

Markets remain nervous on Thursday August 29, especially since the next wave of US tariff increases on Chinese goods are set to come into effect on September 1 and the US yield curve is showing the deepest inversion since 2007, with the 30-year yield falling to a historic low on Wednesday.

What metal stories and price moves have been on the agenda? Metal Bulletin editor Alex Harrison reviews the week

Rising energy costs will be a key driver of base metals prices in the coming year, Ed Meir, senior commodity analyst at INTL FCStone told Metal Bulletin.

In MB’s latest poll on future copper prices, 55% of respondents forecast that three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange will be above $8,000 per tonne by the end of this month. But even as traders on the LME talked of the upward momentum in base metals, copper prices have plunged twice in recent days. Prices fell sharply on Tuesday and again on Thursday, when moves on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were so sharp and sudden that they took traders in Asia aback. To them, for a short time, it looked like the flash crash that galvanized US equity dealers earlier this year.

The third week of calendar year 2012 went off frantically as far the metal markets go.

With the exception of lead, base metals prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange were down during Asian morning trading on Tuesday September 4, with rising trade tensions and disappointing economic data from China dampening market sentiment.

Three-month base metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were for the most part weaker during morning trading on Thursday October 4.