SHFE non-ferrous metal futures decline on week

As of the end of daytime trading on Friday, the SHFE's most-traded copper contract for December delivery closed at Yuan 84,390/tonne ($11,844/t), down by 1.8% from the previous week. The same day, the most-traded December nickel and aluminum contracts also slipped by 0.7% and 0.3% on week to end at Yuan 121,330/t and Yuan 20,910/t, respectively.

The on-week declines stemmed from concerns over possible rising trade friction between China and the United States and the ongoing U.S. government shutdown, market watchers pointed out.

On October 10, U.S. President Donald Trump had announced plans to impose a 100% tariff on all Chinese products starting November 1, as reported. Just a few days later, on October 14, he accused China of deliberately halting imports of U.S. soybeans and threatened to ban U.S. imports of edible oil from China as "retaliation".

Also, the U.S. government shutdown which has entered its third week increased worries about a slowdown in global economic growth, according to market analysts.

These weakened market expectations for base metal demand and put downward pressure on non-ferrous metal futures prices in China this week.

During this week, the SHFE's warehouse inventories of the three metals showed mixed trends. As of October 17, nickel and copper stocks in the SHFE's bonded and standard warehouses had increased by 3.9% and 0.5% from October 10 to reach 34,419 tonnes and 110,240 tonnes, respectively. In contrast, aluminum inventories fell by 2.2% from a week ago to 122,028 tonnes.

Written by Iris Pang, pangjunyu@mysteel.com