Is Nickel the next precious metal?

[Zhorro]

Following the news that Nickel has jumped 30% in one day, maybe it's on its way to being the next precious metal!

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/nickel-prices-soar-supply-angst-russia-ukraine-crisis-escalates-2022-03-07/

Will we now start to look at our cupro-nickel coins in a different light?

[Zhorro]

Nickel is now up about 60% on the day!  Given it goes into many things, this could be quite inflationary - even in terms of the price of new coins.

[Bigmarc]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fine-999-Nickel-Ingot-1-Gram-Pure-Maple-Bar-Collectible-Elemental-Bullion-/265078075975?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

 

[sovereignsteve]

Not precious but an increasingly expensive commodity.

[Bigmarc]

The problem is with these sort of metals is that it's very difficult to get anywhere close to spot. I think it depends on how actively recycled. I did a little experiment with tin and I could get just over half of spot. Copper seems to do well on eBay. I think the recyclers buy it all up.

[GoldenGriffin]

Is the sudden increase in value stealing some of gold's thunder?

I think someone said in the "gold thread" that it would be interesting to keep an eye on other markets in relation to the gold price.

That's very interesting.

[SilverPlatinum]

I heard it today on CNBC TV.

This price increase was due to GM, Ford, Lucid and other car makers saying that they will ramp up the EV production in the coming years.

I think the market seeing what is happening to the oil prices and forecasting that there will be a huge demand for EV in the near future.

[Zhorro]

The Nickel price continues to surge:

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/nickel-spikes-82-russia-supply-fears-spark-historic-short-squeeze

Last night on Bloomberg TV News it was reported:

"The LME (London Metal Exchange) said it would allow traders to defer delivery obligations on all its main contracts after a wide day of price spikes...  It will mean that from Monday traders with a short position on the LME can delay delivering metal by paying a capped fee, and therefore that those who hold a long position to maturity can't be sure that they will receive metal."

This morning Bloomberg were reporting:

"Late Monday, the LME decided to allow traders to defer delivery obligations on all its main contracts - including nickel".

This would seem to imply this includes gold and silver! 

Would it not make sense for the LME just to stop people selling things they don't have!

[Zhorro]

The Nickel squeeze is starting to have a financial impact:

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/one-chinas-largest-banks-unable-pay-margin-call-after-todays-monster-nickel-squeeze

[Zhorro]

The largest Nickel producer is Russian based Nornickel - hence the concern about supplies.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/worlds-largest-nickel-mining-companies

[Zhorro]

The LME has stopped all trading for today in Nickel due to the short squeeze.

[Zhorro]

LME cancels Nickel trades: "The LME announced that all trades will be voided from midnight until 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday when trading stopped and added that it was considering a closure of several days."

https://www.reuters.com/business/lme-suspends-nickel-trading-day-after-prices-see-record-run-2022-03-08/

Presumably this is what would happen if gold or silver ever broke out!

 

[Zhorro]

"Bloomberg has been reporting in recent weeks that Chinese entrepreneur Xiang Guangda had amassed short positions in nickel derivatives to hedge against the risk of falling prices.

Guangda controls the world’s largest nickel producer, Tsingshan Holding, which has been ramping up a wave of new battery-grade nickel capacity in Indonesia.

Those short positions would have become increasingly costly, though, for Guangda, as the nickel price has risen sharply higher due to increased demand and supply worries.

Today, Bloomberg says Guangda, known as “Big Shot”, facing ‘billions of dollars’ in losses:

A Chinese tycoon who built a massive short position in nickel futures is facing billions of dollars in mark-to-market losses after the metal surged more than 170% in two days, according to people familiar with the matter.

Xiang Guangda -- who controls the world’s largest nickel producer, Tsingshan Holding Group Co., and is known as “Big Shot” in Chinese commodity circles -- has closed out part of his company’s short position and is considering whether to exit the wager altogether, the people said. Nickel rocketed to a record high above $100,000 a ton on Tuesday, driven in part by Tsingshan and its brokers’ activity, before trading was suspended.

While the exact scale of Xiang’s losses is unclear, Tsingshan’s short position on the LME is in the region of 100,000 tons of nickel, people familiar with the matter said. It could be even larger than that when positions taken through intermediaries are taken into account, people separately said. That means it would have suffered well over $2 billion of daily losses at the most extreme point of nickel’s surge on Monday."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/mar/08/nickel-soars-record-commodity-prices-oil-gas-russia-ukraine-ftse-dax-dow-business-live

[SidS]

On 07/03/2022 at 10:22, Zhorro said:

Will we now start to look at our cupro-nickel coins in a different light?

The mint have been withdrawing those old 5p/10ps from circulation since 2012-3 for recycling.

I'm still surprised to find so many in circulation after 8 years of solid culling.

Maybe we should help them?

Mind you I've got about £40 face value of pre-decimal cupro-nickel junk. Maybe that's worth a bob or two now... 😁

[Zhorro]

Nickel trading on the LME may start again on Friday (11th March).

[CANV]

Whilst it would have been going up the huge paper short as mentioned above caused the blowout.   Whilst I’m not adverse to free markets on anything, these kind of swings make industrial planning a nightmare