Key Macroeconomic Indicators for Base Metal Prices (2017-2-14)

SHANGHAI, Feb. 14 (SMM) – Eyes should be on a series of economic data on Tuesday, including China’s January CPI and PPI, German’s GDP and January CPI, US’s January PPI and annual core PPI. US Federal Reserve Chairwoman Yellen will deliver a speech on congressional hearings held on February 14-15. Yellen is expected to give a clearer clue on rate decision in March and will reset market expectation on interest rate hike in 2017. US dollar index will stay firm in a short term and base metals will be divergent further.

Price Divergence to Accelerate after Dollar Keeps Strengthening, SMM Says

UK’s January CPI and core CPI will be positive on a yearly basis. UK’s economy performed higher than expected after Brexit, allowing pound to get a break. However, euro is suffering a nasty slump due to anti-european sentiment before presidential election. Approval rate of Deutschlands Christlich-Demokratische Union is only 33%, that of Sozial demokratische Partei Deutschlands is 29%, that of Alternative for Germany is 12%, that of Die Linke is 9%, that of Die Grünen is 8% and that of Freie Demokratische Partei is 5%. Uncertainty of Germany’s presidential election strengthened, weighing down euro.  

IEA pointed out that 90％ of compliance rate in OPEC hit record high. Oil output of OPEC member dropped to 32.10 million bbls per day. Although the data is not clear yet at the preliminary stage of output reduction programme, OPEC has taken a solid step for 6-month oil output reduction. The programme is the largest and longest oil output reduction in the history and will ease global oil oversupply, sending oil prices up.