Price trend

According to the nickel price monitoring of SunSirs, the nickel price rose sharply this week. As of December 9, spot nickel was quoted 216,316.67 RMB/ton, up 3.91% from the beginning of the week and up 50.49% year on year.

According to the weekly ups and downs chart of SunSirs, in the past 12 weeks, the nickel price rose for 6 weeks, fell for 5 weeks, and remained flat for 1 week. Recently, the nickel price has strengthened.

Analysis review

LME Nickel Inventory: As of December 8, LME nickel inventory was 51,402 tons, 1,110 tons higher than the previous day. In the last month, LME nickel inventory increased by 1,728 tons, an increase of 3.4%.

On the macro level, the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits hit a new 10 month high, indicating that the job market was cooling down and supporting the Federal Reserve to slow down interest rate hikes. Macroscopically, the trend is slowly improving, and may be repeated in the short term, but the overall trend is still good.

In terms of supply: at present, it is in the rainy season in the Philippines, and the export of nickel ore is still at a low level. Nova nickel mine will stop production for about four weeks due to the weekend fire event, affecting nickel production. The market hyped Indonesia to resume nickel ore export, boosting the nickel price trend. In terms of ferronickel, the supply was still surplus, and most steel mills maintained production reduction. It is expected that ferronickel prices will continue to operate in a weak position under the condition of oversupply.

Demand: The purchase of downstream stainless steel in the market is delayed near the end of the year, and the spot transaction performance is average. The accumulation of stainless steel in the warehouse was obvious this week, mainly due to the arrival of steel plant resources. In terms of nickel sulfate, the short-term supply is excessive and the production is in deficit.

Market outlook

To sum up, the nickel price trend is greatly affected by the hype on the capital and news sides at present. There are few transactions in the spot market. Under the condition of insufficient support on the fundamentals, it is expected that the nickel price will fluctuate widely.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact SunSirs with support@sunsirs.com.