Nickel Close to a 5-Year High

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

CNBC reports this morning that the LME has frozen all nickel trading.

I knew prices of nickel were eventually going to increase, but I never thought it would be this violent and parabolic. Someday this will happen with gold and silver.

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One Of China's Largest Banks Fails To Pay Margin Call After Today's Monster Nickel Squeeze

(snipped)
A unit of China Construction Bank Corp - one of China's "Big Four" banks - was given additional time by the London Metal Exchange to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of margin calls it missed Monday amid an unprecedented spike in nickel prices. The reprieve from the LME - which just last week sent out thousands of erroneous margin calls on metals contracts - means that the unit, called CCBI Global Markets, is not formally in default, Bloomberg reported citing sources.

The details of the non-payments aren't quite clear: Bloomberg notes that the deferred default "isn’t necessarily an indicator of any problems at the parent company" although Bloomberg may be merely trying not to antagonize a major client. Instead, the media conglomerate suggests that the non-payment is more likely due to a failure by one of its metals-industry clients to make margin payments to CCBI Global Markets, which is a broker on the LME’s open-outcry trading floor. That in turn, left CCBI Global Markets struggling to arrange payment of the unusually large margin calls after the end of the business day in Asia, as nickel prices exploded throughout Monday.

As reported earlier, Monday’s monster squeeze was driven by market participants with short positions being forced to close out as they couldn’t meet margin calls.

But while a big Chinese bank may have had immunity, others may not be so lucky: Bloomberg previously reported that Chinese entrepreneur Xiang Guangda - known as “Big Shot” - had a large short position on the LME through his company, Tsingshan Holding Group, the world’s largest nickel and stainless steel producer. It's unclear whether that particular trader received a margin call and if he paid it.

[68Camaro]

Interesting. Appreciate all posting info like this as it is difficult for us "regular" guys to keep up with multiple rapidly moving markets without people scouring many sources for nuggets and posting the summaries.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

Interesting. Appreciate all posting info like this as it is difficult for us "regular" guys to keep up with multiple rapidly moving markets without people scouring many sources for nuggets and posting the summaries.

No prob!

I retired early and have nothing else better to do, especially in the morning while my credit union branches are closed

[68Camaro]

So to the collected recent prior posts, the reason for the parabolic jump is explained in the summary above - it was a nickel short squeeze. That creates a sudden spike that doesn't last, though the long-term direction might still continue upwards, but at a slower rate.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

Notice how they cancelled trades AFTER the fact all to save a couple of the big boys from imploding. They don't cancel my failed trades Criminal mutha phuckers. Can't wait till this whole thing implodes... I'll throw a party and everyone on RealCent is invited.

[NiBullionCu]

explanation by Kitco:
https://www.kitco.com/news/2022-03-08/LME-suspends-nickel-trading-after-prices-soar-past-100-000.html

Tuesday after prices doubled in just hours to a record $100,000 per tonne

So it was over $45/Lb briefly, then LME shutdown trading and rolled it back.

Three-month nickel on the LME more than doubled on Tuesday to $101,365 a tonne before the LME halted trade on its electronic systems and in the open outcry ring.

The explosive gains, which have seen prices quadruple over the past week, resulted from two major players facing off, said Malcolm Freeman of Kingdom Futures.

One entity has control of between 50% and 80% of LME inventories, LME data shows.

"There's a very big short and a very big long who've been sparring. And because of their sparring, it's brutalised so many other shorts," said Freeman.

Some small industrial users have been caught in the crossfire, having taken positions to get physical delivery but then hit with margins calls costing millions of dollars, he added. read more

On Monday, the exchange said members with short positions, unable to deliver or to borrow metal at a backwardation of no more than 1% of the previous day's cash price may have their delivery deferred.

[Morsecode]

Not even trying to hide the manipulation. Scary.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

Not even trying to hide the manipulation. Scary.

During 9/11 and the subprime/financial debacle in 2008 they banned shorting on the stock market. Criminal cabal.

[slvrbck]

This is some serious BS!! Things are getting very interesting.

[Slaphot]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nomura-where-do-we-even-begin-these-broken-markets

This is crazy! What is the next commodity to go parabolic?

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/nomura-where-do-we-even-begin-these-broken-markets

This is crazy! What is the next commodity to go parabolic?

Not the parabola itself, the craziness was the cancelling of ALL the trades before and after the spike. It's infuriating.

ALL markets are RIGGED. I'm gonna celebrate when this POS fake market blows up.

[Slaphot]

I remember back when Silver hit $50 and they increased the margin requirements. Same old tricks.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

I remember back when Silver hit $50 and they increased the margin requirements. Same old tricks.

Yes, while dumping thousands of contracts at the same time, day after day.

They'll keep these tricks going for as long as possible, it won't last forever though. The end is approaching, and it's coming sooner than later.

[Slaphot]

Breaking News:

LME Doesn’t Expect to Restart Nickel Trading Before March 11

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/lme-doesn-t-expect-to-restart-nickel-trading-before-march-11-1.1734507

[shinnosuke]

I wish realcent had a LIKE button.

[thecrazyone]

Interesting. Appreciate all posting info like this as it is difficult for us "regular" guys to keep up with multiple rapidly moving markets without people scouring many sources for nuggets and posting the summaries.

Are you calling me irregular?

[thecrazyone]

Breaking News:

LME Doesn’t Expect to Restart Nickel Trading Before March 11

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/lme-doesn-t-expect-to-restart-nickel-trading-before-march-11-1.1734507

I'm sure someone has the fine print on this, but it makes me laugh how things are able to take off, or plummet, and be allowed to be traded, until such parties see fit that it's "no longer safe", or whatever the excuse is.

I get that noone wants another depression, but isn't that kind of double-standard to control the volatility?

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

I'm sure someone has the fine print on this, but it makes me laugh how things are able to take off, or plummet, and be allowed to be traded, until such parties see fit that it's "no longer safe", or whatever the excuse is.

I get that noone wants another depression, but isn't that kind of double-standard to control the volatility?

"Free markets" died a long time ago. Really started when Tricky Dicky removed the gold standard in 1971. Then Reagan created the "Plunge Protection Team" in the mid-80's.

Today the Fed can simply create money on their master computer and give it to whoever they want without any oversight or congressional approval.

[frugi]

Something I learned from the last time Nickel went through the roof was that Nickel us a main ingredient used in warfare. It’s in almost every single bomb, and missile, and used in armor penetration and specialized weaponry among all kinds of other tools of warfare and the price goes up when there is a uptick in armament production. I think this increase is partly due to recent increasing warfare on the part of Russia, and partly on speculation of great supply squeeze in the future due to a further increase in demand due to near term expanding warfare involving multiple nations, aka wwiii. Talk is that China is also about to attack Taiwan in the next few weeks. I imagine we are headed into some choppy waters soon. Funny how COVID news evaporated in favor looking wwiii news.

[frugi]

I’ll tell you what though. I’m going to start listing Canadian nickel rolls on eBay tonight for damn sure. $35.00/lb shipped. After I heard about this 100k Nickel thing I looked into it and there could be high nickel prices for the foreseeable future. I’ve been sitting in hundreds of pounds of Canadian nickels since 2007 I’m looking to dump!

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

I’ll tell you what though. I’m going to start listing Canadian nickel rolls on eBay tonight for damn sure. $35.00/lb shipped. After I heard about this 100k Nickel thing I looked into it and there could be high nickel prices for the foreseeable future. I’ve been sitting in hundreds of pounds of Canadian nickels since 2007 I’m looking to dump!

Wow, I only have about 30lbs of 99% CA Ni. The LME doesn't open back up until March 11th, so no actual price to go by. If you hurry you should be able to sell those rolls at $50 each. I was thinking about doing that myself. Haven't looked on Feebay yet to see what they've currently sold for.

[coppernickel]

Nickel has gone mainstream. Just saw this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cE_V0eFVy54

Heresy Financial talking the nickel short and why nickels are worth more than a nickel.

[Cu Penny Hoarder]

Nickel has gone mainstream. Just saw this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cE_V0eFVy54

Heresy Financial talking the nickel short and why nickels are worth more than a nickel.

Not good. Now we will have much more hoarding competition from newbies like this guy.

Then again, more ppl than ever are making digital payments. It's too much work and effort involved in procuring many lbs of physical nickels. Today we have these crypto-cultists, they're not interested in physical money anymore.

[Morsecode]

Today we have these crypto-cultists, they're not interested in physical money anymore.

Correct. I'm headed to the bank in a few minutes to see if I can order a box, mostly just to gauge what their reaction is.

Naturally, I took a pail of Jeffs to cash in last week to cover an ebay paypal deposit. Smart move. Probably explains why I'm a landscaper.

[JerrySpringer]

Nickel has gone mainstream. Just saw this:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cE_V0eFVy54

Heresy Financial talking the nickel short and why nickels are worth more than a nickel.

Not good. Now we will have much more hoarding competition from newbies like this guy.

Then again, more ppl than ever are making digital payments. It's too much work and effort involved in procuring many lbs of physical nickels. Today we have these crypto-cultists, they're not interested in physical money anymore.

I am more worried about banks get marching orders to ration nickels and Lincoln cents. The real social threat is if an Oprah or Kardashian tweets that nickels are worth hoarding.