SHANGHAI, Apr. 23 (SMM) – LME lead opened at USD 2,037/mt during Wednesday’s Asian trading hours and then edged up to fluctuate between USD 2,050-2,067/mt. But later LME lead fell due to upbeat housing data from the US and retreated crude oil prices, to end at USD 2,046/mt, up USD 7/mt. Trading volumes climbed 675 lots to 4,398 lots and positions increased 695 to 144,483. Inventories reduced 4,175 mt to 192,375 mt and the canceled warrant ratio held up at 50.1%, lending support to LME lead.

SHFE lead rolled back early gains overnight and closed at RMB 13,610/mt, down RMB 20/mt, after hitting a high of RMB 13,730/mt.

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 reduced the number of institutions exempting 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.