Realcent.org

Nickel dropped about 3.7% today, going from $5.98/lb. to $5.76/lb. according to kitcometals.com. Other than being a quiet day before a holiday, I don't see anything to account for this big of a drop in a single day. The problem with quiet days is that individual traders might be able to push things around more than they usually could. I just bought some more .999 Canadian nickels yesterday and will look to add even more based on the price drop...if I can find them.

Also, I noticed that copper, lead, zinc and aluminum didn't go down sharply like nickel did. So I am suspecting this could be a trader trying to manipulate things to make a quick profit on an otherwise quiet day.

The thing with is nickel is that in the old days, it was only sourced from a few places. Virtually all the production in 1950 was from North America and Europe, with Australia being a distant third at a mere 2.9% share of global production. Fast forward to 2013 and Asia is producing more than North America and Europe combined! And major production is also now taking place in South America and Africa. It turns out that there's just more source locations out there than what used to be assumed.

I hadn't kept up with the latest supply info - had no idea those other sources were in operation at such a significant level.