Night session the most-traded SHFE tin contract hovered at highs Spot market transactions were relatively sluggish [SMM Tin Morning Brief]

SMM Tin Morning News on March 2, 2026:

Futures: The most-traded SHFE tin contract hovered at highs during the night session, closing at 455,610 yuan/mt, up 5.65%.

Macro: (1) Since the beginning of the Year of the Horse, multiple provinces have intensively released supporting details for vehicle trade-in policies. According to statistics, since February 10, over five provinces including Hunan, Qinghai, Henan, Fujian, and Jiangxi have successively introduced supporting details for vehicle trade-in policies. Currently, all provinces in mainland China have released supporting details for the 2026 national vehicle subsidy. A comprehensive review shows that the subsidy details released by various provinces are largely similar. The policy implementation period runs from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026. Subsidy programs are divided into retirement and renewal and replacement renewal. The retirement and renewal subsidy standards are as follows: for retiring eligible old vehicles and purchasing passenger NEVs, a subsidy of 12% of the new vehicle selling price will be granted, with a maximum subsidy amount of 20,000 yuan; for retiring eligible fuel passenger vehicles and purchasing fuel passenger vehicles with displacement of 2.0 liters and below, a subsidy of 10% of the new vehicle selling price will be granted, with a maximum subsidy amount of 15,000 yuan. The replacement renewal subsidy standards are as follows: for purchasing eligible passenger NEVs, a subsidy of 8% of the new vehicle selling price will be granted, with a maximum subsidy amount of 15,000 yuan; for purchasing eligible fuel passenger vehicles, a subsidy of 6% of the new vehicle selling price will be granted, with a maximum subsidy amount of 13,000 yuan. (2) The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) Price Monitoring Center stated in an article that from September 2025 to present, driven by factors such as "explosive" demand growth and "cliff-like" capacity shortages, the global memory market gap has widened and memory chip prices have continued to rise, with the increase showing an expanding trend over the past month or so. It is recommended to pay attention to the impact of memory chips on downstream prices. Survey findings indicate that as of January this year, prices for the two major memory chip products, DRAM and NAND flash memory, both hit record highs since data collection began in 2016. Taking mainstream models as examples, the average contract price for DRAM (DDR4 8Gb 1G*8) in January was $11.5, up approximately 24% from the previous month and approximately 83% from September 2025; the average contract price for NAND flash memory (128Gb 16G*8 MLC) was $9.5, up approximately 65% from the previous month and nearly 1.5 times from September 2025.

Fundamentals: (1) Supply side: In March, most smelters are expected to gradually resume production and return to work, exiting the holiday state. (2) Demand side: Downstream procurement remains cautious. Downstream enterprises will gradually begin to resume production and return to work, but order conditions are relatively mediocre.

Spot market: Post-holiday tin ingot spot market transactions showed a fluctuating pattern of initial weakness followed by strength and then turning to wait-and-see sentiment. On the first post-holiday day (February 24), spot market circulation was relatively tight, with suppliers maintaining relatively high premiums, but most downstream solder enterprises had not yet fully resumed work, resulting in limited actual transactions. As the resumption of work accelerated, the spot market shifted to a "hard-to-find-goods" situation on February 26, with traders showing strong reluctance to sell and downstream enterprises actively inquiring, significantly warming the trading atmosphere. However, when tin prices once again stood at highs above 430,000 yuan/mt, downstream purchase willingness was further suppressed, with enterprises mostly choosing to digest pre-holiday inventory and defer restocking, causing market trading to subsequently turn light.

[Data Source Statement: Apart from public information, other data is derived from public information, market communication, and SMM's internal database model, processed by SMM for reference only and does not constitute decision-making advice. The provided information is for reference only. This article does not constitute direct advice for investment research decisions. Clients should make prudent decisions and not replace their independent judgment with this. Any decision made by the client is unrelated to SMM]