Tin bucks falling metals prices trend

Most metals prices were lower on Monday as the US dollar strengthened, although some were up in early trade.

September copper was 2 cents lower to $3.81 per pound in New York while three-month copper was down $35 to $8,400 per tonne in London despite rising to as much as $8,490 earlier in the day.

Aluminium jumped to its highest price since mid-March at $3,169 per tonne before closing $7 lower than Friday’s level at $3,143 per tonne.

The price of aluminium has risen due to worries about power shortages to smelters, especially in China, where the price of the power to process aluminium can amount to as much as almost half of smelting costs.

Among other base metals, lead was $15 lower to $1,865 per tonne while zinc fell $19 to $1,926 per tonne and nickel dropped $550 to $21,850 per tonne.

Inventories that were down 80 tonnes in London Metal Exchange warehouses helped tin buck the declining trend to add $600 to $23,300 per tonne on the session.

Most precious metals prices were lower as well, with August gold down $16.70 to $887 per troy ounce in New York while July silver dropped 62 cents to $16.78 per troy ounce and July platinum traded even at $2,039.20 per troy ounce.