Metals have continued to drop mirroring falls seen on equity markets across the world.
Although global stock markets rallied this morning after yesterday’s severe drops, it is yet to be seen whether commodities will follow.
Worries over the state of the global economy driven by the eurozone crisis, a market belief that the US Operation Twist stimulus probably won’t work, and Chinese efforts to cool its economy, all contributed to the fall in metal prices.
In early trading today, three-month copper fell as low as $7,115 (£4,620) per tonne, but had picked up a little by 7:17am GMT to $7,296 (£4,738). This still represents over $1,000 wiped off the value of copper this week.
The official LME price for copper yesterday was $7,805 (£5,061) compared to $8,253 (£5,280) on Wednesday.
Aluminium was down to $2,264 (£1,468) from $2,300 (£1,471) a day earlier. At 7:17 this morning, aluminium had dropped to $2,202 (£1,430). Alloy was also down yesterday with its official price being $2,220 (£1,440) from Wednesday’s $2,260 (£1,446).
Lead had collapsed at 7:17 this morning to $2,033 (£1,320). Its official price yesterday was $2,159 (£1,400) compared to $2,252 (£1,441) a day earlier.
Nickel bombed this morning and at 7:17am was trading at $17,754 (£11,529). This compares to yesterday’s official price of $19,550 (£12,678) and $20,700 (£13,242) the day before.
Tin suffered most of all diving to $18,100 (£11,753) compared to the official price for yesterday of $20,025 (£12,986) and $22,650 (£14,490) on Wednesday.
Zinc was trading at $1,935 (£1,256) early this morning dropping further from Thursday’s price of $2,000 (£1,297) and Wednesday’s of $2,061 (£1,318).
Steel was down yesterday to $560 (£363) from $570 (£364) on Wednesday with losses mitigated by a stronger dollar.
