SMM Evening Comments (Jan 10)

SHANGHAI, Jan 10 (SMM) – Nonferrous metals were mixed today with SHFE nickel up over 1% and tin up 0.67%. While aluminium edged up slightly, SHFE lead and zinc were down 0.51% and 0.69% respectively.  

Ferrous metals weakened this afternoon even though rebar and hot-rolled coil were still up at closure. Coke and coking coal saw drops of 3% and 2% respectively, while iron ore edged down slightly.

Copper: SHFE copper maintained rangebound trading today as investors look out for the US wholesale inventories level in November tonight.

Lead: SHFE lead traded around 5-day moving average. With limited upward momentum and firm support from moving averages below, it is expected to keep rangebound at high level tonight.

Nickel: SHFE nickel saw an inflow of funds today of 267 million yuan and we expect it to rangebound this evening. Unemployment rate in the Eurozone, weekly crude oil inventory data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the US Import Price Index are set to give guidance to the market tonight.

Tin: SHFE tin price stepped up and finished above several moving averages. We do see upper pressure at 146,000 yuan/mt and expect the contract to stay rangebound in the short term.

Zinc: Longs closed out their positions in the SHFE zinc contract this afternoon as lower LME zinc price dampened the sentiment. Funds became more cautious as zinc fundamentals in the Chinese domestic market remained weak. We see support at 26,000 yuan/mt tonight. 

Aluminium: We see further downward room for aluminium prices with weak fundamentals. SHFE aluminium sees support at the 20-day moving average. 

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