Nonferrous metals bound in range

India Infoline reported that range bound activities were noted in the India futures exchange lacking major reports due to be released on Wednesday. Nonferrous metal pack is trading in green in the evening session with support from weakness in Dollar index.

The index was seen trading 75.28 on Wednesday as against 75.25 on Tuesday. Dollar was trading marginally lower against the EURO at 1.4258, down 22 pips. The declines of housing starts in US and soberness of construction output in Eurozone indicated that the housing markets still need time to refurbish themselves.

In US, the housing starts fell 10.6% to an annual rate of 523000 in April from the revised March estimate of 585000. Eurozone construction activity declined by 0.3% in March and 4.9% on YoY basis. On positive side, the decline of UK unemployment to 7.7% from 7.9% in March appeased the metals.

Mr Steve de Kruijff COO of Xstrata Copper North Queensland said that “Market conditions have been very challenging for copper smelting and refining operations as a result of overcapacity in the global market, low treatment and refining charges and increasing operating and capital costs. The economic viability of our Mount Isa copper smelting and refining operations has been under increasing pressure for a number of years and cannot be sustained in the long term. We need to evolve our business to ensure we can secure the future of our operations for the long term.”

Activities in Aluminum remained confusing with rise of stockpiles. Another rise of 1325 tonnes in Aluminum was noted today with total stocks on LME at 4711875 tonnes.

Aluminium was seen trading at INR 113.6 per kilogram on MCX up by a meager 0.2%. The prices have so far tested an intra day high of INR 114.1 per kilogram on MCX with a low of INR 112.65 per kilogram. Charts of the metal look week with near term supports emerging at INR 109 per kilogram.

Copper far month contract on MCX was seen at INR 405.3 per kilogram up INR 3 or 0.8%. Zinc was at INR 96 per kilogram up 1%. Nickel was seen dipping in evening trades trading at INR 1103.7 per kilogram almost unchanged from the settlement prices of INR 1102 per kilogram Tuesday.