Base metals on the London Metal Exchange were broadly lower during morning trading on Tuesday June 19, after escalated trade tensions between the United States and China, as well as a surging dollar index, pile pressure on the complex.
Nickel prices recorded the sharpest drop of the complex, falling more than 2% to a low of $14,580 per tonne during morning trading. Initially shrugged off by the base metals group, the rallying dollar index this week - which reached a fresh 2018 high of 95.18 earlier - is pushing base metals prices lower. "Metals prices on the LME itself remain under pressure: copper has dipped below $6,900 per tonne, while nickel costs less than $15,000 per tonne. Speculative market participants are also likely to retreat from the metals markets as sentiment becomes increasingly gloomy," Commerzbank Research noted in a morning report. Renewed tensions in the US-China trade relationship form a crucial component to this morning's downtrend in base metals, with...