(Bloomberg) -- Zinc extended gains into a third session as orders to withdraw stockpiles from London Metal Exchange warehouses hit the highest in more than seven years.
Orders to take zinc jumped for a second day, with a gain of more than 49,000 tons taking the total to 106,775, driven by requests for metal in Singapore. That was the highest since October 2017. Two days of huge demands have left less zinc available to other buyers, and add to recent constraints on the availability of metal that underpins futures trading on the bourse.
The volume of zinc held in LME warehouses has rebounded sharply from low levels seen in early 2023, with a mountain of stock accumulating in Singapore during a downturn in demand for the steelmaking material. But nervousness about supply has grown in recent weeks, with data showing that a single entity bought more than half of the readily available stock in the LME’s warehousing network. Remaining available inventories are now 154,125 tons, the lowest since November 2023.
Zinc has gained almost 5% this week, rising to the highest since late last month. It traded at $3,111 a ton as of 11:48 a.m. local time on the LME, and has gained 17% this year. Prices have been supported in part by a series of mine disruptions.
Other industrial metals including copper were mixed on Wednesday, as traders digested Donald Trump’s latest cabinet appointments and looked ahead to a slew of pre-Thanksgiving data on the American economy, which should offer clues on the outlook for interest rates.
The president-elect’s tariffs agenda appeared to gather further momentum, as Trump named Jamieson Greer as the US Trade Representative and Kevin Hassett to direct the National Economic Council. Greer was intimately involved in Trump’s first-term trade policy decisions.
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