News overview
Getting on the band wagon
News - 25 Aug 10
The following example shows how difficult it is to judge developments on the nickel market at the moment. On the 18th August 2010 the news agency Bloomberg released two reports taken from research of leading commodity banks. One had the title of “In the 4th quarter nickel can increase by 14% since demand is rising” (Société Générale), the other had the headline “Due to weak demand for stainless steel [up to year end] nickel can fall by 23%” (UBS).
New tasks for Paul the octopus
News - 23 Jul 10
In the last few weeks the nickel market has been moving along aimlessly without showing any great signs of life. It would have therefore been quite nice if the “octopus oracle”, Paul from Oberhausen, who played such an unfailing part during the football World Cup in South Africa, could also make accurate predictions about the nickel market. Looking at the fundamentals, it can only really be reported that the marked decline of commodity demand in the stainless steel works can most probably be attributed to the usual seasonal reductions and not necessarily to a double dip scenario.
The sandwich dilemma
News - 16 Jun 10
In the second half of May on the London Metal Exchange (LME), nickel prices stabilised within a tight range of USD 21,000.00/mt on the downside and USD 22,000.00/mt on the upside after the expected correction set in to counteract the totally oversold move. This consolidation was more than overdue to let the previous dynamic move in prices be put into perspective. Towards the end of the month the imbalanced state of affairs had normalised sufficiently enough for some technical indicators to even show some pointers for a short term break out of the trading range.
Fodder for the media
News - 18 May 10
In consequence of the hysteria about Greece, both the financial and commodity markets have made clear corrections with the commodities moving the most. Copper prices dropped from just over USD 8,000.00/mt to below USD 6,500.00/mt. Without any change to fundamental data, nickel fell from USD 27,000.00/mt to below USD 21,000.00/mt.
Commodity diplomacy instead of commodity protectionism
News - 20 Apr 10
It is not quite four weeks since the last publication. On the 23rd March 2010 the quote for 3 months nickel was still at USD 22,390.00/mt. In the meantime it has risen to levels over USD 27,500.00/mt, which is a rise of 22.82%. At the moment the metal is trading around USD 26,000.00/mt. It is presumed that this correction has been caused by the reaction of the financial markets to the SEC (the American Securities Exchange Commission) filing a civil charge of fraud against the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
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