Jul 3, 2026 Tin Midday Commentary
Prices: the most-traded SHFE tin contract continued to test the 400,000 yuan/mt threshold in the night session, retreating from highs before consolidating above 390,000 yuan/mt. After opening this morning, it strengthened again, opening at 398,240 yuan/mt and closing the morning at 398,800 yuan/mt, up 0.66%. On the LME, three-month tin opened at $51,060/mt and was last at $51,900/mt, up 2.05%.
On the macro front:
(1) The US Bureau of Labor Statistics released June non-farm payrolls data on July 2, showing only 57,000 jobs added, far below the market expectation of 115,000. The April and May figures were revised down by a combined 74,000. The unemployment rate fell to 4.2%, but the labor force participation rate slipped 0.3 percentage points, reflecting a contraction in labor supply. After the data, the US dollar index briefly plunged nearly 40 points to 100.58, hitting a two-week low. CME interest rate futures showed the probability of a July rate hike fell to 17.6%, while the odds of no change rose to 82.4%.
(2) At the Sintra central bank forum, Fed Chairman Warsh Kevin explicitly abandoned fixed interest rate forward guidance, with policy fully anchored to real-time inflation and employment data. He reiterated that the pace of balance sheet reduction remained unchanged and gave no dovish signal.
(3) On Friday, the US dollar was on track for its biggest weekly drop in nearly three months, as a sharp cooling in US job growth in June prompted traders to scale back expectations of near-term Fed rate hikes. The market currently saw a 52% chance of a rate hike at the September meeting, down from 64% in the previous session.
Spot market: overall trading was thin this morning, with downstream enterprises in a subdued buying mood. Last week, as futures pulled back, spot trades had picked up notably, and downstream firms had already completed a round of restocking for both rigid demand and phased procurement. This left suppliers with generally tight spot inventories. Mainstream offers were concentrated at premiums of 800–1,200 yuan/mt. As futures rebounded toward the 400,000 yuan/mt threshold today, buyer fear of high prices emerged, with only a small amount of rigid-demand purchasing. Under the dual constraints of tight supply and rising prices, the spot market returned to quiet trading.
Looking back at this week, tin prices, after severe shakeouts earlier, gradually entered a phase of wild swings, sentiment repair, and consolidation at lows. At the start of the week, the market's core logic was still digesting the hawkish stance of overseas central banks; the US dollar index temporarily surged, exerting systematic pressure on the base metals sector. On the geopolitical front, US-Iran negotiations over the Doha meeting showed disagreements between both sides, and subsequent remarks by senior Iranian officials regarding tolls after the mid-August expiry of the navigation agreement kept geopolitical uncertainty in a stalemate. However, toward the end of the week, the US June ADP and non-farm payrolls data both came in surprisingly weak. The significant cooling in the labour market caused tightening bets to abruptly cool down. The US dollar index was heading for its biggest weekly drop in three months, and the scaling back of near-term rate-hike expectations triggered a rebound in the base metals complex, pushing tin prices back to the 400,000 mark.
Overall, the most-traded SHFE tin contract is expected to continue moving sideways in the near term. Watch capital flows and open interest changes around the 400,000 yuan/mt threshold.
