SHANGHAI, Mar. 24 (SMM) -- Yesterday, LME nickel prices opened at USD 22,300/mt and closed at USD 22,500/mt, with highest price at USD 22,630/mt and lowest price at USD 22,057/mt. Daily trading volumes were 1,342 lots and positions were 98,218 lots.

Investors didn't attach great expectation on release of any substantial aid plan to debt crisis in Greece at the EU summit to be held on March 25th, resulting in growing sentiment to seek US dollar as a tool to hedge against financial crisis, and long position momentum of US dollar index was stable recently. According to data from National Association of Realtors (NAR) released on Tuesday, the US existing home sales in February slipped by 0.6%, equaling to 5.02 million unit on a yearly basis after conversion, higher than previous expectation of 5 million unit. The release of such news pushed up US dollar. Recently, base metal prices continued fucutating weakly affected by strong performance of US dollar. Investors were expecting solid news from recovery of downstream industries, but there were almost no goods news concerning fundamentals temporarily.

LME nickel prices closed above 5-day moving average, and further tested previous high of USD 23,040/mt. Although nickel prices received support from fundamentals recently, any momentum for LME nickel prices to exceed previous high was weak. It is expected that prices will move in the USD 22,300-22,900/mt range

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