SMM Nickel Morning Meeting Minutes on August 23

On August 22, the SHFE 2309 nickel contract prices closed at 169,340 yuan/mt, an increase of 2,720 yuan/mt from the closing price of the previous trading day. The intraday trading was weaker than that of the previous trading day. The trading volume decreased by 6514 lots, and the open interest decreased by 4031 lots. It shows that long funds and short funds have flowed out of the market to varying degrees, and bears closed their positions. The price will rise in the short term and may fall back soon.

From a macro point of view, the current strong trend of nickel prices is still greatly affected by the Indonesian nickel ore quotas. On Monday, the People's Bank of China lowered the 1-year LPR for the second time this year, down 10 basis points to 3.45%. The positive macro sentiment supports nickel prices to fluctuate upwards.

From a fundamental point of view, spot market transactions were still weak as a whole, and the upstream was selling aggressively, lowering spot premiums. In summary, it is expected that the nickel price may fluctuate rangebound in the near term.