The three-month futures price of nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) dropped by US$442/ton last Friday (January 8), closing at US$17,667/ton, and the spot price also slid by US$443.5/ton to US$17,613.5/ton.

The average nickel price of this month has reached US$17,674/ton, higher than the US$16,823/ton in December 2020.

Meanwhile, LME’s market inventory of nickel continued to increase by 324 tons to 249,018 tons. The cumulative increase of this year has reached 2,310 tons so far.

According to market participants, nickel prices dropped after the previous surges due to the fact that the US Dollar Index (DXY) rebounded above the 90 level, the non-agricultural employment slid by 140,000 in December 2020, which was the first decline since April 2020, and market inventory had a cumulative increase.

However, nickel prices rose by 6.3% week on week. The short-term nickel prices were expected to fluctuate.