Latest News

Aluminium strikes 11-week high on better demand potential customers

Aluminium rates climbed to an 11week high up on Thursday as purchasing interest increased with enhancing demand prospects from top consumer China.

Three-month aluminium on the London Metal Exchange (LME). touched $2,313.5 per metric lot, the highest because Jan. 4. It last traded up 1.3% at $2,301.5 per load at 1709 GMT.

Leading consumer China imported 720,000 lots of unwrought. aluminium and products in January-February this year, up 93.6%. from the same duration in 2015, customizeds information showed.

Aluminium has been lagging behind its base metals peers, it. is inexpensive. The current Chinese import data is surprising and. widely mentioned as a short-term chauffeur, a trader source said.

Brokerage Marex also saw enhancing demand for LME aluminium.

Cash is coming in, and we have seen evidence of that very first. in copper however more just recently in aluminium, said Alastair Munro,. senior base metals strategist at Marex, expecting more. capital streams into underperforming commodity assets.

In other metals, LME lead was up 0.4% at $2,072.

LME lead stocks rose 34% on Wednesday to their highest in 11. years after huge arrivals of metal in warehouses in Singapore. and South Korea.

Presence of lead stocks has pressed the discount rate for the. money over the three-month contract << MPB0-3 > to above $50 a load,. its greatest since June 1992.

General industrial metals prices are most likely to be topped by. a stronger dollar, that makes it more expensive to purchase the. greenback-priced commodity.

The dollar index strengthened on Thursday after U.S. out of work claims unexpectedly fell and the Federal Reserve chose. to keep essential rates unchanged.

LME copper was up 0.3% at $8,951.5 a load, nickel. increased 0.2% to $17,520, zinc increased 0.7% to. $ 2,526 and tin leapt 2.4% to $27,895.

(source: Reuters)