Nickel Prices: What the $@#! just happened?!?
A week or so after recording episode 3, in just a two day period, Nickel prices more than tripled, reaching levels twice the previous record high. Trading was halted - and in an incredibly rare and controversial move, billions of dollars worth of trades were unwound/cancelled. And the kicker: all of this happened in the wake of war breaking out in the Ukraine. So what does it all mean? That’s what we asked.
Unprecedented doesn't begin to touch what happened. So the question is what happened? As a quick follow up to episode 3, we turned to Robert Morris to help answer this question and to give his point of view on what to expect for the future of nickel trading. Bob is an expert in base metals trading in markets and the former vice president of worldwide base metal sales for Vale, the giant Brazilian mining company. Here's some of that conversation:
Topics discussed in this episode
- Is this really a Russia thing? [1:20]
- How does this affect the N.A. supply chain? [2:37]
- If companies don't want to use Russian nickel, what are the implications? [5:12]
- The London Metals Exchange was closed for over a week. What does that mean for future nickel trading? [6:53]
- Is there an investment opportunity? [8:54]