Prices mixed for precious, base metals

Prices for precious metals were mixed on Thursday. In mid-morning trade on the COMEX component of the New York Mercantile Exchange gold had added $1 to $673.50 per troy ounce on April contracts after trading in a range between $668.30 to $680.20 per troy ounce. Meanwhile, spot gold was at $668.70/$669.45.

May silver on COMEX was 4.5 cents higher to $14.28 per troy ounce. Nymex June palladium, meanwhile, was 90 cents higher to $357.50 per troy ounce and spot palladium was trading in the $351.00/$356 range. Nymex April platinum was the exception of the day, falling $4.40 to $1,252 per troy ounce.

Base metals prices were also mixed on the day. Nickel added 0.1 percent to $41,500 per tonne after going as high as $42,100 per tonne at one point as inventories dropped to less than a day’s global consumption. Copper added 1.4 percent to $6,102.50 per tonne as London Metal Exchange warehouses saw their inventories down by 2,575 tonnes during the day. Zinc ended the session even at $3,480 per tonne, while aluminium prices dropped by 0.6 percent to $2,797.50 per tonne. Aluminium stockpiles in LME warehouses were up by 550 tonnes.