LONDON: Aluminium prices rose in London on Tuesday, drawing some support from a 16% fall in available aluminium stocks in warehouses registered with the London Metal Exchange (LME).
Three-month aluminium on the LME was up 0.9% at $2,512.5 per metric ton in official open-outcry trading. The contract hit $2,477, its lowest in more than three months, on Monday.
According to the LME data, cancelled warrants account for 61% of the total aluminium stocks after 45,050 tons were marked as being prepared to be delivered from warehouses in Port Klang, Malaysia.
This means the amount of available aluminium in the LME system is low, although price gains have been limited by a lack of demand, a trader said.
LME copper was steady at $9,002 a ton in official activity, supported by a weaker dollar and expectations President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs would be less aggressive than promised.
The US dollar weakened after a report on Monday in the Washington Post that Trump’s aides were exploring plans that would apply tariffs only on sectors seen as critical to US national security. Trump denied the report.
“People are wondering about the Trump situation ahead of the inauguration on Jan. 20. While there was lots of noise about the tariffs yesterday, metals markets got a mildly bullish signal from expectations that the tariffs would not be very severe,” said Dan Smith at Amalgamated Metal Trading (AMT).
He added that AMT’s model for copper, which seeks to replicate algorithmic trading patterns used by computer-driven funds, flipped from bearish to a buy signal.
Nickel gained 0.9% to $15,320, zinc fell 0.6% to $2,884.5, tin gained 1.0% to $29,575 and lead slipped 0.3% to $1,939.5.
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