After Monday’s falls, metals on the LME did not recover but did not drop as dramatically as yesterday either.
Despite Italy being downgraded a notch by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday, metal buyers could be waiting for the results of a two-day meeting beginning today at the US Federal Reserve to see whether a fresh bout of quantitative easing will be revealed on Thursday to provide stimulus to the world’s largest economy.
Standard Bank commodities strategist Leon Westgate told the Financial Times that Chinese buyers of copper, who normally purchased at lower prices on the LME, had not entered the market yesterday but had continued to buy in Shanghai. He added: “They don’t have the appetite or the financial ammunition at the moment.”
At 7:06am GMT today, three month copper was trading at $8,395 (£5,347), which was down on yesterday’s official price of £8,435 (£5,366).
Aluminium dropped yesterday to $2,347 (£1,493) compared to Friday’s $2,384 (£1,509). Alloy was down a touch yesterday to $2,295 (£1,460) from $2,300 (£1,456) on Friday.
Lead was also lower at $2,315 (£1,473) from $2,411 (£1,526) on Friday. Nickel fell on Monday to $21,100 (£13,423) from $21,725 (£13,750) on Friday.
Tin was down on Monday to $22,670 (£14,422) from $23,500 (£14,873) at the end of last week. Zinc was lower on Monday at $2,115 (£1,346) from $2,209 (£1,398) on Friday.
Steel remained unchanged at $580 but increased to £369 in sterling from £367 at the end of last week.
