Aluminium's three-month price on the London Metal Exchange was down by more than 2% at the close of trading on Monday March 4, with the broad strength in the US dollar deterring commodity investment.
Volumes in both aluminium and copper futures were high over the day's trading, with more than 22,000 lots traded in both by the close. While open interest in aluminium has fallen by over 48,000 positions since February 15 to 878,755 positions. Copper's three-month price traded in similar territory over the afternoon, hitting an intraday low of $6,377 per tonne and down 2.3% from a high of $6,540 per tonne last week, its highest price since July 2018. Meanwhile, the red metal's cash/three-month spread continued to trade in a wide backwardation over the day, recently in a $53 per tonne backwardation, while news of key Chinese producer Jiangxi Copper's acquisition of a controlling stake in Yantai Humon Group could further boost Chinese production. Yet LME...