SMM Evening Comments (Apr 26)

SHANGHAI, Apr 26 (SMM) – Nonferrous metals continued their weak performance on Thursday April 26. SHFE zinc saw a wider decline of close to 3%. Copper, aluminium, lead and nickel dipped. Tin closed slightly higher.

The ferrous complex fell across the board. Iron ore led with a loss of over 1%. Coke dropped 0.62%. Rebar, hot-rolled coil and coking coal edged down.

Copper: The SHFE 1806 contract fell to a low of 51,380 yuan/mt as SHFE zinc slumped today. The contract mostly traded between daily moving averages today and received support as investors cut their shorts for two consecutive days. We expect it to see some upward room tonight. 

Aluminium: SHFE aluminium tested support at the 20- and 60-day moving averages today and hit a low of 14,340 yuan/mt. While there was no further development in the US sanctions against Russia, uncertainty remained and investors traded with caution. We expect the contract to be stay slightly weak on a technical basis.   

Zinc: With pressure from shorts, the SHFE 1806 contract plunged to a low of 23,680 yuan/mt but support at the lower Bollinger bands remained. The contract fell less from its LME counterpart. We see the contract testing support at 23,500 yuan/mt with pressure from zinc delivery at LME warehouses. 

Nickel: The SHFE 1807 contract traded between several moving averages today to close 440 yuan/mt lower from the previous day, at 103,350 yuan/mt. It is likely to trade weakly as the KDJ indicator expands downwards and the MACD red line shortens. Tonight, investors will take more cues from the US initial jobless claims for the week ended April 21.

Tin: The SHFE 1809 contract mostly hovered at 146,800-147,100 yuan/mt in the morning but dipped to a low of 146,550 yuan/mt in the afternoon as investors cut their longs. It failed to break pressure from the 20-day moving averages at closing. We expect transactions to be thinner tomorrow on the last trading day before the Labour Day holiday.

Lead: With pressure above, the SHFE 1806 contract dipped for two consecutive days. It is likely to trade rangebound tonight. Inventors will take guidance from LME lead tonight.

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