Base metals recovered ground lost in the previous day's hefty sell-off, with copper leading the market into the plus column by midsession on the London Metal Exchange (LME) on Thursday.
Traders said the recovery was understandable give that most metals were oversold, but further short-term losses remained possible given the bruising to sentiment.
Worries that credit controls and other measures in China could curb the country's ravenous industrial demand had hurt all leading base metals, prompting and underlining the recent retreat.
China has raised capital requirements for new projects in some sectors to curb over-investment in the booming economy, raising concerns that the bull market in metals might be ending.
"The macro data has undoubtedly provided the trigger for the funds to further liquidate long positions," Credit Lyonnais analyst Maqsood Ahmed said in a weekly report.
"The hope was that an orderly exit could be engineered, however, this is not proving to be the case. In the key copper contract the 100-day moving average ($2,643) has been taken out and given the markets propensity to overshoot and undershoot there is no reason why the 200-day moving average cannot be the next downside target.
In the short term prices might consolidate and even edge higher given oversold indicators, but the market was likely to remain shaky ahead of holidays in Europe and Asia next week.
Copper, which hit an 11-week low of $2,570 a tonne in a five percent decline on Wednesday, clawed back ground through London ring trading as Shanghai futures erased some losses by the close there.
Broker Triland Metals said in a weekly research paper: The chart picture will need to improve to tempt buyers back in force. The trade has been scale down buyers, and the backwardation, while narrowing as the nearby dates roll off, will continue to prevail for a long time yet.
"When confidence returns (and the funds decide to buy again) this market will move up very quickly again."
Three months prices ended the rings at $2,632, up $52 from Wednesday's depressed kerb close. Aluminium, which hit five-week lows of $1,635 on Wednesday, moved up to $1,663, a $3 gain.
Nickel rose $530 to $11,230, lead was at $718, up $9, zinc rose $21 to $1,044, while tin was at $8,450 versus $8,475. Tin's cash to threes backwardation flared out to $525/575 from $250/300 on Thursday as the market turned.
"This market continues to hold steady, with the speculative longs encouraged to hold on by the strong backwardation. A clearance and close over $8600 should be enough to get the price rising again," Triland said.
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