Industrial metals have gone from boom to bust in the space of only three months

Copper, aluminium, zinc and tin all hit record price highs in March. Lead was the only LME base metal to miss out on the super-bull party. After the March melt-up, however, industrial metals are now in meltdown. The LME Index has just experienced its sharpest quarterly fall since the global financial crisis. (File pic: LME metal trading London.)

LONDON: Industrial metals have gone from boom to bust in the space of only three months.

In March the London Metal Exchange (LME) suspended its nickel contract after the price spiked to more than $100,000 per tonne. Three-month nickel CMNI3 is now trading around $22,500, pretty much back where it was before the descent into chaos.