SHANGHAI, Apr. 23 (SMM) – LME zinc prices started at USD 2,212/mt Wednesday and moved higher to USD 2,230-2,240/mt helped by upbeat financial reports and home sale numbers. The prices ended the day at USD 2,240.5/mt, up USD 30/mt,
Trading volumes increased 306 lots and positions fell by 1,182 to 298,002. LME zinc inventories declined 3,050 mt to 486,850 mt.
The most active SHFE zinc contract gapped higher at RMB 16,655/mt Wednesday night but lacked momentum to rise further, and edged lower to RMB 16,610/mt before ending the session at RMB 16,635/mt, up RMB 80/mt, Positions in the July delivery zinc increased about 1,000.
The Fed officials were quiet recently and eyes were mainly on US data. Both US stocks and dollar increased on upbeat home sales. March’s existing home sales climbed 6.1% MoM to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.19 million, a new high since September 2013 and beating market expectation.
Swiss franc weakened as Swiss National Bank reducing the number of institutions exempted from negative interest rate. Meanwhile, April Consumer Confidence Index in euro zone turned out downbeat. In response, the euro ended down 0.18%.
Greece debt crisis was eased slightly as European Central Bank announced to finance Greece bank continually and Greece’s ELA upper limit was increased EUR 1.5 billion to EUR 75.5 billion.
US stocks increased while Asian and European stocks were mixed. LME base metals prices diverged.
Markets now are not optimistic about the PMI data for Germany, France, the euro zone and China due out today. SHFE zinc is expected to trade at RMB 16,560-16,680/mt on April 23, and spot zinc may be offered at discounts of RMB 90-120/mt to SHFE 1506 zinc contract.
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