Most base metals rebounded on Wednesday on brighter prospects for a Greek bailout deal and after solid US economic data that spurred hopes for stronger demand. Many investors scrambled to close out short positions after profiting from sharp falls over the past two days when some metals hit multi-year lows. "The short-term downtrend has been broken," said Gianclaudio Torlizzi of consultancy T-Commodity in Milan.
"Aluminium, zinc and lead look nice on the charts, they will likely see nice short-covering over the next few weeks," he told Reuters Global Metals Forum. Metals joined euro zone stocks and peripheral bonds in climbing after Greece said it was ready to accept a bailout offer from its international creditors if some conditions were changed. "There's a recognition that even in the worst scenario, if Greece leaves the euro zone, it's not necessarily going to have a deep negative impact on global growth, which is ultimately what commodities are interested in," said Caroline Bain, senior commodities economist at Capital Economics.
Three-month aluminium on the London Metal Exchange climbed 2.1 percent to close at $1,727 a tonne while zinc gained 2.3 percent to $2,046. Both metals scored the biggest percentage daily gains in about two months. Copper lagged with a rise of 0.2 percent to end at $5,775 a tonne. Bolstering the market was upbeat data that showed US private employers hired the most workers in six months in June and factory activity accelerated.
Activity in China's manufacturing sector expanded slightly in June, not as much as expected but offering some signs that the world's second-largest economy may be starting to level out after a series of support measures. "Although the data wasn't particularly encouraging on China, it's not getting any worse. And given the loosening we've had, both monetary and fiscal, there perhaps is the expectation that things could start to pick up," Bain said.
Tin was the biggest mover, surging 4.4 percent to close at $14,545 a tonne, the biggest percentage gain in 10 weeks, after sliding 3.3 percent on Tuesday. "The tin market shows few signs of tightness yet and the current macro environment is not propitious," said Stephen Briggs, metals strategist at BNP Paribas in London. "But we do think that in a longer-term context the LME price is unsustainably low." Nickel ended up 0.4 percent at $12,025 a tonne. On Tuesday it slid over 8 percent to a low of $10,795 a tonne, its weakest since April 2009, before clawing back losses to end slightly higher. Tuesday's price swings came after the Shanghai Futures Exchange announced it would accept global brands for delivery against its contract, freeing up supply. Lead rose 1.4 percent to finish at $1,784 a tonne.
Comments
Comments are closed.