BLBG:Zinc Advances as Prices at This Year’s High Prompt Purchases
Zinc rose in London, extending a fourth weekly gain, after prices at this year’s high prompted buying by traders who study technical charts.
The metal used to protect steel from corrosion reached $2,218 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange on Feb. 8. That was the highest price since Jan. 26, 2012. Zinc is up 6.2 percent this year on the LME, the second-biggest advance after nickel among the six main metals, even as stockpiles tracked by the exchange remain near the highest level since 1994.
“Technical buying was triggered above $2,190,” Andrew Silver, a broker at Triland Metals Ltd. in London, said today by e-mail. “Fundamentals are poor.”
Zinc for delivery in three months climbed 0.2 percent to $2,209 a ton by 10:16 a.m. on the LME. Investors bought and sold 1,605 contracts, about 6 percent of the three-month average. Copper for delivery in three months slipped 0.1 percent to $8,283 a ton and the metal for delivery in March was little changed at $3.7615 a pound on the Comex in New York.
Financial markets in China, the world’s biggest zinc and copper user, are shut this week for the Lunar New Year holiday. Buying and selling of LME copper contracts was about 2 percent of the three-month average.
Figures due Feb. 15 will show industrial production in the U.S., the second-ranking copper consumer, expanded for a fourth month in five in January, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Industrial output in the euro region expanded in December after three months of shrinkage, a separate survey showed before a report on Feb. 13.
Copper stockpiles tracked by the LME were little changed at 399,775 tons, daily exchange figures showed. They were the highest since November 2011 as of the prior session. Zinc inventories slipped 0.2 percent to 1.19 million tons after dropping for a third week last week. Still, they’re within about 4 percent of the 18-year high reached Dec. 6.
Aluminum climbed in London. Nickel, tin and lead were little changed.
To contact the reporter on this story: Agnieszka Troszkiewicz in London at atroszkiewic@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net
