Metals prices up again

Metals prices were on the rise again on Tuesday, with copper, nickel, and zinc all hitting new record highs on the day.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was as high as $7,230 per tonne during the day on news of a new miners’ strike, this time in Chile. Also contributing to the rise in price was the fact that inventories are down to just 2½ days at the current rate of global consumption. Later in the day, the price of copper slid back to $7,175, still a gain of 5.7 percent on the day.

In New York, meanwhile, copper trade on the COMEX was suspended for a quarter-hour when the benchmark copper contract was up to its 20-cent daily trading limit.

Nickel was up to $20,000 per tonne, a new record and a gain of 3.5 percent on the day. Helping the price up was the possibility of output disruptions at a facility in Canada where a labor contract expires in the middle of next month. There are also new predictions of a 10,000 tonne deficit in global supply this year.

Zinc added 3.6 percent on the day to $3,385 per tonne on a tight market.

Meanwhile, in precious metals, gold was up 1.4 percent to $629.80 per troy ounce.