[SMM Analysis] Cobalt Salt Market Pessimism Continues to Spread, Future Outlook Diverges Severely

This week, the cobalt chloride and Co3O4 markets fell into a near standstill, with very few actual transactions and overall liquidity almost drying up. From the supply side, over 80% of enterprises had suspended external quotations, leaving very limited effective price information for market reference. A few enterprises still provided price expectations, with cobalt chloride quoted at 103,000-108,000 yuan/mt and Co3O4 at 325,000-340,000 yuan/mt. However, under the current environment, unless substantial concessions were made, external sales were nearly impossible to achieve. These quotations largely reflected only the upstream cost floor and psychological expectations, with their guiding role for actual transactions having significantly weakened.

On the demand side, downstream enterprises generally still held a certain amount of raw material inventory, sufficient to sustain basic consumption in the short term, so purchasing urgency was not high. As end-use demand remained persistently weak and cobalt chloride prices continued to decline, downstream players' "rush to buy amid continuous price rise and hold back amid price downturn" sentiment further intensified, compounded by concerns over the future market direction. They generally chose to suspend procurement and stay on the sidelines.

 Against this backdrop, market pessimism continued to spread. Although some divergence remained between bulls and bears, bearish forces gradually gained the upper hand, making the near-term market direction particularly uncertain. Overall, at this special period in June, the triple pressures of high inventory accumulation, scarce liquidity, and weak demand converged, making it difficult to offer a definitive judgment on the future market trajectory. In contrast, the actual recovery of downstream procurement in July and the intensity of efforts to hold prices firm in the raw material intermediate product segment will provide more substantive guidance for the subsequent market direction.