The major commodity indexes were up around 0.4% this morning as firmer precious metal prices helped offset range-bound industrial metal prices. But nickel prices remain under pressure with SHFE nickel settling 1% lower in Shanghai this morning while LME 3-mo. nickel traded as low as $12,900 per ton (=$5.85 per pound) earlier today.
LME data today show a net inflow of 14,244 tons of nickel into LME registered warehouses. In New York this morning, COMEX copper futures were trading around $2.76 per pound while NYMEX light sweet crude oil futures edged up above $59 per barrel. Reuters reports that “Refined copper cathode production by major Chinese smelters fell by more than 4% in November from the previous month, a survey of producers by research house Antaike published on Tuesday showed.” Meanwhile, following OPEC’s announced production cuts last week, Goldman Sachs has raised its 2020 oil price forecasts to $63 per barrel for Brent and $58.50 per barrel for WTI. But Bloomberg reports Saudi Arabia is doing everything in its power to make the production cuts stick and is not optimistic they’ll be successful. Precious metal prices gained ground this morning with COMEX gold and silver futures trading around $1,473/to and $16.75/to, respectively. In foreign exchange trading the euro edged up to $1.108 while the British pound rose to $1.318 ahead of this week’s UK elections.
