SHANGHAI, Dec 18 (SMM)－Both ferrous and nonferrous futures traded higher today. Nickel led the gains to close at 4% higher, while both tin and lead rose about 2%. Copper and zinc registered over 1% increase.

In the ferrous complex, coking coal surged 8% to the upper limit in the afternoon session, while iron ore and coke jumped some 7%. Rebar was up 2% and hot-rolled coil saw close to 1% increase.

Copper: The upward room remains if copper can break through its previous plateau. Limited macroeconomic news is expected tonight.

Aluminium: Aluminium price is expected to rangebound under pressure at 20-day moving average. Recommend multiple short-term orders with small volume at low price.

Nickel: The final value for Eurozone’s November CPI would guide the market tonight when participants would also watch out for resistance at the 40-day moving averages.

Lead: Rangebound trading is likely to dominate the SHFE lead market tonight. The 1802 contract saw increasing liquidity today with traded volumes up 80% to 46,154 lots. The shift of the main contract is set to complete shortly.

Tin: The rally today was mostly due to shorts taking profits as physical delivery is around the corner. In fact, there is still need for shorts to cut their positions and we see upper resistance at 137,500-140,000 yuan/mt.  

Zinc: The downward trend was broken today and we expect zinc prices to stand above all moving averages. However, few physical transactions were heard in the three major spot markets and sentiment is likely to be volatile. 

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