THE NEXT BIG THING: Stainless Espresso Stream

22 May 2023 – The Next Big Thing: We are back and are pleased to announce the launch of the Stainless Espresso Stream. Curious? So are we! UK to impose sanctions on Russian commodities including nickel, aluminium, copper and diamonds. The German stock index DAX shows record highs last week, reflecting the good mood in the market. At the same time, German basic suppliers are significantly lowering electricity and gas prices.

UK: Sanctions against Russian nickel, aluminium and copper

The United Kingdom has announced sanctions against imports of Russian nickel, aluminium and copper. This announcement followed the meeting of the G7 countries in Hiroshima, Japan, where the other G7 countries also announced that they would impose further sanctions (including on metallic raw materials) against Russia and further restrict access to their economies. And to enforce existing sanctions more strongly and to take vehement action against attempts to circumvent them.

Does LME now have to take Russian metals off the market?

In the recent past, the LME commodity exchange had refused to ban Russian commodities that were not on any sanctions list from the London trading venue. With this concrete announcement by the British government, the LME may now be in a tight spot to continue refusing to ban Russian commodities. There seems to be no official announcement from the LME on this at the moment.

Problem for High Grade Nickel Supply

The supply of high-grade nickel is therefore likely to become even tighter, as the largest Russian nickel producer, Nornickel, is also one of the most important high-grade nickel producers in the world. Indonesia, which until now has produced almost exclusively low grade nickel, will not be able to fill the gap due to a lack of production capacity. Other producing countries, such as Canada, are also likely to be out of the running due to limited capacities and dwindling nickel deposits or declining ore quality. With Chinese mega-factories for EV and battery production mushrooming, this could be a hot year in the struggle for nickel availability.

DAX: Record high despite recession worries

The local benchmark index DAX marked an all-time high at just over 16,300 points at the end of the week, driven by an above-average performance of stocks from the healthcare, financial and automotive sectors.

This was probably triggered by progress on raising the US debt ceiling, but also by the reporting season for the first quarter, which turned out significantly better than feared despite a twelve percent drop in profits compared with the previous year.

Driven by companies in the basic materials, consumer cyclicals and utilities sectors, earnings were on average 18 percent above analysts’ expectations. At the same time, earnings in the highly valued industrials and technology sectors grew by 65 and 36 percent respectively, improving the quality of DAX earnings.

This also confirms once again that the market is in a much better mood than was often postulated.

German basic suppliers lower electricity and gas prices

Further good news for many consumers is falling electricity and gas prices, which the German basic suppliers will now pass on. Electricity prices are expected to go down by about 14% and natural gas by as much as about 23%. With the money freed up here, consumption on the end consumer side should continue to rise, which would have positive effects on the entire process chain.

THE NEXT BIG THING: Stainless Espresso Stream

The Stainless Espresso is now also available as video with the Stainless Espresso Stream. Thorsten Gerber, CEO of the Gerber Group and publisher of Stainless Espresso, explains why in the first video – exclusively on steelnews.biz.

Latest news