Malaysian tin held flat on Friday, despite steady Japanese buying. Spot tin on the Kuala Lumpur Tin Market closed at $7,850 a tonne, on a volume of 105 tonnes. "The buying from the Japanese helped the market close steady but the price did not go up because we were compensating for yesterday when the London Metal Exchange was down," a trader on the northern Malaysian island of Penning said.
Malaysian tin hit a 4-1/2 month low when it closed at $7,850 a tonne on Thursday. But the decline of $140 was still shallower than the $220 drop in the price on the LME the previous day.
LME tin closed up $45 on Thursday at $7,750 a tonne. London tin often lends direction to the price in Kuala Lumpur. The Japanese, whose huge electronic industries need large volumes of tin for soldering purposes, accounted for 80 of the 105 tonnes traded on Friday's market.
European purchasers bought 20 tonnes and Malaysian dealers took the rest. All of the volume was transacted at the itself, with buyers and sellers matching with calls of 105 tonnes each.
The flat close in Kuala Lumpur, versus the $45 rise in London, narrowed accordingly the premium for a tonne of Malaysian tin made available to Europe.
The premium, based on a formula that includes freight, insurance and other financial costs, stood at $320 a tonne on Friday, against on Thursday's $365.