SHANGHAI, Mar. 6 (SMM) – Eyes should be on a series of data on Monday, including China’s February foreign exchange reserves, US’s January factory orders and durable goods orders and eurozone’s March Sentix investor confidence index. China’s National Development & Reform Commission will deliver speech on economic and social development and macro-economic control. Expectation over US Federal Reserve’s rate hike continued strengthening last Friday, but US dollar index dropped. Most base metals also declined with limited rising strength and will remain divergent on Monday.

SMM Price Outlook for Base Metals on SHFE (Mar. 6, 2017)

As US dollar increased in February, market players expected China’s foreign exchange reserves to keep falling to USD 2.9690 trillion in February after dropping below USD 3 trillion to USD 2.9982 trillion in January. US’s factory orders and durable goods orders will drop in January 2017 from December 2016’s level. US’s ISM manufacturing PMI hit a 2-year high and increased for 6 months in a row while Markit manufacturing PMI missed market expectation in February. The two data were still firm, a sign of US’s strong manufacturing industry. As factory and durable goods orders are always volatile on a monthly basis, it will not make any negative effect on US’s manufacturing industry if the data drop.

CERAWeek conference will be held on Monday. Global major oil producing countries, including Saudi Arabia, gulf countries, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and US, will meet in US’s Houston. Russian Ministry of Industry and Energy Minister Alexander Nova will give a speech for information of oil market and oil prices.