SHANGHAI, Jun. 23 (SMM) – LME lead fell USD 43/mt Monday and last Friday. LME lead dropped below USD 1,800/mt last Friday and dipped to USD 1,762/mt on Monday, a fresh low since late March, to end at USD 1,765/mt. Trading volumes slipped 187 to 3,284 lots with positions up 287 to 141,608. LME lead inventories declined 1,200 to 172,200 mt.
During Chinese Dragon Boat Festival, markets focused attention on Greece debt issue. European Union is sparing no effort to solve the crisis and Greece’s Minister of Finance also expresses that its new reform plan will break the ice, thus markets sentiment turns better
US May’s home sales rose 5.1%, much better than the 4.4% expected with April’s drop of 3.3%, supporting US dollar. In euro zone, the flash data of June’s CCI was -5.6 with May’s -5.5.
Today will see HSBC’s China manufacturing PMI for June, which is expected to be improved slightly or on par with the previous one. China’s Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index tumbled 6.42% last Friday. Near a thousand individual stocks hit a downward limit while less than 50 ones reached an upward limit on Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges, resulting from tight liquidity in market.
US dollar index increased 0.22% to 94.32. London gold plunged 1.17% to 1,186. European and US stocks all rose. LME base metals dropped except LME aluminum and tin.
LME lead should be in USD 1,750-1,775/mt today. SHFE market was suspended last Friday evening and yesterday and SHFE 1508 lead is expected to fall to RMB 12,740-12,860/mt. Spot lead may drop to RMB 13,200-13,300/mt.