Metals – Edging up on dollar weakness
Spot gold rose to its highest level in almost four weeks, while industrial metals edged higher yesterday as easing inflation in the US pushed the dollar index to its lowest level since April 2022. Rising market speculation that the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes may soon be nearing an end further lifted overall optimism across risk assets.
China released its preliminary trade data for metals yesterday, which shows total monthly imports for unwrought copper falling 16.4% YoY to 449.6kt in June amid weak demand from the property market. Higher domestic production of the metal also impacted demand for imported copper. Cumulative unwrought copper imports fell 12% YoY to 2.6mt in the first half of the year. In contrast, imports of copper concentrate rose 3.2% YoY to 2.13mt last month, while year-to-date imports rose 7.9% YoY to 13.4mt. In ferrous metals, iron ore monthly imports rose 7.4% YoY to 95.5mt, while cumulative imports are also up 7.7% YoY to a total of 576mt in the first half of the year.
On the exports side, China’s unwrought aluminium and aluminium products shipments fell 19% YoY to 492.6kt last month, while year-to-date exports declined 20% YoY to 2.81mt in the first half of 2023. Exports of steel products jumped 31% YoY to 43.6mt over the first half of the year.
Recent data from China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) shows that steel inventories at major Chinese steel mills fell to 15.9mt in early July, down 7.6% compared to late June. Meanwhile, crude steel production at major mills fell marginally by 0.3% to 2.24mt/d in early July.