With the caveat that he was making "a strange presentation in a strange year," ED&F Man's Ed Meir described the recent rebound in the London Metal Exchange three-month nickel as "stunning" during the LME Week metals debate on Monday October 19.
LME nickel futures are currently trading up 40% on the $11,142-per-tonne year-to-date low hit on March 23 when Covid-19 industrial shutdown measures sent shockwaves through the global economy. And as if to reinforce Meir's positive sentiment, the LME three-month nickel price hit an intraday high of $15,704 per tonne on October 19, the highest in the year so far. And despite admitting that his pre-pandemic nickel forecasts had been blown out of the water due to the virus, Meir was optimistic for the nickel price's prognosis moving forward. "We weren't alone in that most of our forecasts [for 2020] were way off the mark," Meir owned. "There is obviously a big mess surrounding all the metals." Indeed, Meir's initial $19,800 per tonne bull-case forecast for 2020 was revised down some 20% to a much more modest $15,800 per tonne as a result of the pandemic, on a par...