Thursday's turnaround in aluminium had locals guessing on Friday morning when we signed off for the week. Was the big December play still live, or had the rally been merely a last-ditch desperate attempt to crack resistance c. 2850/60? News that Alcan could face strike action in Quebec helped on Friday, as did reported falls in LME and SHFE inventory, though it was surprisingly strong US employment data that gave prices a boost in the pm sessions. After languishing between 2810-2820 throughout the morning sessions, values suddenly spiked up to 2850, though the move was very short-lived. The pm kerb ended slightly up on the previous close, though most commentators went home unconvinced.
Some ebb and flow in nearby spreads saw tightness in C-Jan fall away (1.00c from 3.00b), though Jan-Feb reversed from 2.00c to 4.00b on evaluation. Forward backwardations slipped by $1.00/mth typically in 2007 and 2008, with rates tightening $0.50/mth thereafter.
Strike talk and news of a mine outage had so far on Monday morning failed to ignite copper and zinc, respectively, while aluminium drifted lower on very light turnover of no more than 600 lots. At time of writing trading had restarted at 2815 before coming off to lows currently of 2788.
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