Published on Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 12:12 | Source : CNBC-TV18
Updated at Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 16:00
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Jan has been bullish month for base metals
We need to keep an eye on the base metals because January has been quite a bullish month for base metals. Almost all analysts, we have been speaking, had written off base metals for the first half of 2008. But the performance has quite been on the positive side.
CNBC Awaaz's Commodities Editor, Manisha Gupta - We need to keep an eye on the base metals because January has been quite a bullish month for base metals. Almost all analysts, we have been speaking, had written off base metals for the first half of 2008. But the performance has quite been on the positive side.
Supply concerns, month end buying and positive end at the US equity markets that performed yesterday, all of that has been supporting the markets. Since the last 3 days in a straight row, we had seen good gains happen into base metal prices. South Africa and China supply disruption concerns, because of power supply problems and bad weather, have been supporting the prices.
Aluminum is trading at 6-month highs as 6% china production has been shut. Zinc prices have climbed 7% in the last 24 hours as top zinc producer has shut all facilities in China. Copper prices have gained by 9% in the month of January as a lot of supply disruptions have been happening to that metal as well. Nickel prices have gained by 5% in January because the Stainless Steel production has seen quite a perk up.
All these factors of individual fundamentals that we have seen for each of these metals have been supporting the prices quite strongly. It's a different day today, of course, because we have the US unemployment figures coming out today and also the non-farm payroll figures coming in and that is what would give a direction for the weekend.
