Back in time: a brief history of LME’s nickel meltdown
As prices went haywire, margin remained frozen and calls to suspend trading were rejected
On March 7, the nickel market was in trouble. In the 10 days since Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border, beginning their abortive advance on Kyiv, prices for industrial metals had risen and fallen in lockstep. By 1:05pm that Monday, those correlations had shattered: while three-month copper was 5.2% above the previous day’s close, nickel contracts had lurched 44% higher, to $42,993 per tonne. The contract closed that day at $48,072.
That evening, the LME held talks with key market
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