Three-month base-metals prices on the London Metal Exchange were mixed at the 5pm close of trading on Thursday December 3, with nickel and aluminium showing drops of more than 1% but tin gaining by nearly $100 per tonne day-on-day.
Nickel's price fell to $15,954 per tonne at Thursday's close, down by 0.3% from $16,000 per tonne on Wednesday, which in turn was down by 1.7% from Tuesday's three-month price of $16,278 per tonne.Thursday's 5pm price was below $16,000 per tonne for the first time since November 23. The 7pm closing price on Wednesday had already dipped below this level, at $15,970 per tonne.This came after the metal hit a year-to-date high on November 30 of $16,525 per tonne. It has been trending downward since, on a cooling of sentiment in Chinese stainless steel mills over the past few weeks."It appears that the LME nickel price has struggled to keep most of the gains made recently, when compared with its peers," Fastmarkets analyst...