The continued downward pressure on nickel prices has not eased. [agency Review]

On Tuesday, the contract price of Shanghai Nickel 2202 fell in shock in intraday trading and rebounded in the afternoon, but it weakened again in late trading and finally closed at 142690 yuan / ton. The trend of nickel in the night market fluctuated and fell, and the price of nickel in Shanghai followed.

On December 14, the spot price of nickel in Huatong was 144550-146650 yuan, with an average price of 145600 yuan / ton, down 250 yuan, while that in Guangdong was 146900-147300 yuan / ton, with an average price of 147100 yuan / ton, down 450 yuan.

Industry: the domestic base price of nickel mine in Indonesia rose 4.63% month-on-month in December 2021. NICL expects to achieve the production target of 70-90% nickel mine in 2021; Zhongwei Co., Ltd. plans to invest 1.44 billion yuan to build an annual output of no more than 120000 tons of high-nickel ternary precursors.

Yesterday (December 14), nickel prices fluctuated down, continuing the recent weak pattern, the current price has been close to the previous low, but there is still room for further decline.

The decline in nickel price is mainly due to the weakness of downstream stainless steel and the loss of 300 series stainless steel. Steel mills may increase their production reduction efforts from January to February next year, and the demand for raw materials will decline significantly.

At present, some Ferro-nickel factories still have sporadic December inventory unsold, and the suppliers of Ferro-Nickel are worried about the decrease in shipments in the later period and have a strong mentality of shipping. In addition, the formal commissioning of Aoyama high nickel matte in Indonesia has also made market expectations more pessimistic. As a result, nickel prices are driven downwards in the short term, and there is still room for prices to fall.

Operation suggestion: it is recommended to try to go short.