SMM2 March 26: most of the outer disk non-ferrous metals market was red yesterday, and the price of (LME) copper futures on the London Metal Exchange hit a nine-and-a-half-year high on Thursday, as investors rushed to buy metals to hedge the potential inflation risk brought by the central bank's continued stimulus measures. Federal Reserve Chairman Colin Powell said on Wednesday that it may take more than three years to meet the Fed's inflation target, indicating that the Fed plans to keep interest rates unchanged for some time. The LME metal market tumbled across the board this morning. Lun Copper fell nearly 1.7%, Lun Aluminum fell nearly 2.2%, Lun Zinc and Lun lead fell nearly 1.5%, Lunni fell nearly 1.6%, and Lunxi fell nearly 2.7%. On the domestic side, international copper fell nearly 1%, Shanghai Copper fell nearly 1.6%, Shanghai Aluminum fell nearly 0.7%, Shanghai lead fell nearly 1.3%, Shanghai Zinc fell nearly 0.6%, Shanghai Nickel fell nearly 3%, and Shanghai Tin fell nearly 3.7%.
On the black side, the thread fell nearly 0.6%, the hot coil rose nearly 0.2%, the coking coal fell nearly 2.7%, the coke dropped nearly 3.2%, and the iron ore dropped nearly 0.3%. In terms of hot coil, the total inventory of hot rolled coil this week is 4.4504 million tons, compared with last week + 345400 tons, month-on-month ratio + 8.42%, year-on-year + 8.57%. At present, the production of steel mills continues to remain normal, but the terminal demand has not yet been fully started, and the pace of hot coil resource digestion is slow, leading to the continuous accumulation of total inventory. At present, the social treasury has exceeded the same period of last year for two consecutive weeks, and the pressure on the market inventory has intensified. This year, social inventory is mostly concentrated in the hands of large households with strong financial strength, and its ability to resist inventory pressure is strong, so the short-term accumulation market is still bearable. In addition, SMM statistics show that the influence of hot coil maintenance in March is significantly higher than that in February, and the production limit of superimposed environmental protection has been tightened continuously, resulting in a high drop in hot coil output, and the subsequent supply pressure will be alleviated. It is expected that there will be an inflection point in inventory in the past week or two.
[summary of SMM Morning meeting] at the beginning of the new year, the real estate market was intensively regulated & the capital pressure of enterprises increased with the rise of steel prices.
The previous period of crude oil fell nearly 1.8%, while U.S. crude oil futures prices closed slightly higher on Thursday as Texas refineries resumed production after freezing weather last week, while Brent crude fell on fears that a four-month rise would prompt producers to increase production. Total crude oil production fell 1.1 million b / d, or more than 10 per cent, to 9.7 million b / d in the week ended February 19, equaling the biggest weekly decline in history, while US refinery processing fell to its lowest level since September 2008, according to the US Energy Information Administration ((EIA)).
In terms of precious metals, Shanghai gold fell nearly 1.1%, while Shanghai silver fell nearly 2.2%. At one point on Thursday, Comex gold futures fell nearly 2% as surging US bond yields and better-than-expected economic data weakened demand for gold. While gold is often sought as a hedge against inflation, rising bond yields weaken that position because it increases the opportunity cost of holding gold.
As of 09:30, the status of contracts in the metals and crude oil markets:
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