And so apparently are nickel, zinc and aluminium prices, according to notes from Barclays Capital, JP Morgan and Standard Chartered.
More intriguingly there has been a sudden surge in cancelled warrants at the London Metals Exchange (LME).
Metal on warrant represents inventories in store at the LME’s warehouse. But cancelled warrants represent metal earmarked for delivery — investors cancel their warrants because they want to take it out of the LME warehouse, as Chris Flood, one of the FT’s commodity correspondents, explained.
So a rise in cancelled warrants suggests more demand for the underlying physical commodity and deliveries thereof.