In terms of the metal market:
As of the midday close, the base metals in the domestic market fell across the board. Shanghai zinc fell 1.54%, Shanghai tin fell 1.47%, and Shanghai copper, Shanghai nickel, Shanghai aluminum and Shanghai lead all fell within 1%. The main alumina futures fell 1.32%. The main industrial silicon contract rose 0.87%. The main lithium carbonate futures contract rose 1.16%.
The black series were all green, iron ore fell 2.08%, thread fell 1.16%, hot coil fell nearly 1%, and stainless steel fell 1.05%. In terms of double coke, coking coal and coke fell within 1%.
In terms of external metals, as of 11:35, LME metals fell. London zinc fell 2.18%, and London tin, London lead and London copper fell within 0.8%. London aluminum rose slightly, and London nickel rose 0.65%.
In terms of precious metals, as of 11:35, COMEX gold was flat at $2,071.2 an ounce, and COMEX silver fell 0.04%. In terms of domestic precious metals, as of noon close, Shanghai gold continued the rally of the previous five trading days, up 0.34%, and Shanghai silver fell 0.12%. Concerns about US regional banks have added to the attractiveness of safe-haven assets such as gold and Treasuries, which have also provided support to gold prices.
In addition, as of noon closing, the main futures of European line container shipping were reported at 1699.7 points, down 10.69%.
As of 11:35 on February 2, some futures at noon:
Spot & Fundamentals
Copper: Today, Guangdong 1# electrolytic copper spot price premium 0 yuan/ton - premium 50 yuan/ton for the current month, the average premium of 25 yuan/ton is the same as the previous trading day, and the wet copper is quoted at a discount of 200-190 yuan/ton, and the average price discount is 195 yuan/ton compared with the previous trading day. The average price of 1# electrolytic copper in Guangdong was 68,855 yuan/ton, down 240 yuan/ton from the previous trading day, and the average price of wet copper was 68,635 yuan/ton, down 240 yuan/ton from the previous trading day. Spot market: Guangdong's inventory increased for 2 consecutive days, and the increase in arrivals was the main reason. As far as we know, more and more downstream are entering a state of vacation, and there are very few replenishers......
Aluminum: The Spring Festival holiday is approaching, SMM has investigated the Spring Festival holiday of some downstream enterprises of aluminum scrap for readers' reference......
Macroscopic
In terms of the US dollar: As of 11:35, the US dollar index was at 103.03, down 0.03%. Data from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that initial jobless claims rose more than expected last week. Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose by 9,000 in the week ended Jan. 27 to a seasonally adjusted 224,000, the data showed. Another report showed that U.S. nonfarm productivity grew faster than expected in the fourth quarter. Markets are awaiting key U.S. employment data to be released later in the day to gauge when the Fed might start cutting interest rates. The jobs report is expected to show 180,000 new jobs added in January.
►On February 2, the central parity of the RMB exchange rate in the interbank foreign exchange market was 7.1006 yuan per US dollar per dollar
In terms of other currencies:
Mahmoud Alkudsi, senior market strategist at broker ADSS, said the Bank of England today signaled an imminent rate cut, but after the US and the eurozone began cutting rates later this year, a rate cut by the Bank of England seems unlikely, which should boost the pound against the dollar and the euro. He said the Bank of England appears poised to postpone the start of its rate-cutting cycle until later this year.
FX traders are ramping up bets that the Bank of Japan will tighten policy in April, which will help drive a continued decline in USD/JPY. Currently, the gap between two- and three-month implied volatility is widening, while absolute levels are rising, suggesting greater confidence that central banks will exit negative interest rates in April rather than March. That said, if US interest rates continue to weaken in anticipation of the Fed's first rate cut, the downward pace of USD/JPY could accelerate earlier. Powell's appearance on TV on Sunday could be a watershed moment that galvanized support for a rate cut. This week's USD/JPY low of 145.90 is an important pivot line and could be at risk if today's US jobs report triggers broad USD weakness.
Domestic:
On February 2, the China warehousing index jointly surveyed by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing and China Storage Development Co., Ltd. was 51.2% in January 2024, down 0.4 percentage points from the previous month, and remained in the expansion range, showing that the warehousing industry as a whole maintained a good operation trend and achieved a stable start. Sub-indices such as business volume, facility utilization, charging price, ending inventory, average inventory turnover, and business activity expectation all remained in the expansion range, indicating that the warehousing business volume increased further, the commodity turnover efficiency remained efficient, and the stock of consumer goods was positive, and the expectation remained optimistic.
The central bank today carried out a 14 billion yuan 14-day reverse repurchase operation, with a winning interest rate of 1.95%, the same as before, and a 7-day reverse repurchase operation of 83 billion yuan, with a winning interest rate of 1.80%, the same as before. Due to the expiration of 461 billion yuan of 7-day reverse repurchase today, a net withdrawal of 364 billion yuan was realized.
On the evening of February 2, more than 300 listed companies issued relevant announcements on buybacks and shareholdings. According to statistics, since the beginning of this year, nearly 500 listed companies have repurchased, more than 400 listed companies repurchase plans are being implemented, and it is interesting that the chairman of more than 20 listed companies publicly "shouted": optimistic about the development of the industry and the company itself, and proposed a large-scale repurchase. Among them, CATL announced yesterday that it had repurchased a total of 1.7 billion yuan as of January 31, WuXi AppTec announced this morning that it planned to repurchase shares with 1 billion yuan, and Sany Heavy Industry announced on January 31 that the chairman proposed to repurchase no less than 600 million yuan.
Macro aspects:
Financial data for January 2024 will be released soon. A number of analysts believe that the financial data in January is expected to achieve a "good start". Among them, it is expected that the scale of new credit in January will still be more than 4 trillion yuan, which will be at the second highest level in history.
Today, the value of investment housing loans in Australia, the seasonally adjusted data on the change in non-farm payrolls in the United States in January, the unemployment rate in January, the labor force participation rate, the change in the number of non-farm payrolls in the private and corporate sectors, the final value of the University of Michigan consumer confidence index, the monthly rate of durable goods orders in the United States in December, the monthly rate of factory orders, etc.
Crude oil: Oil prices rose intraday on Friday, reversing some of the losses triggered by unconfirmed ceasefire reports between Israel and Hamas in the previous session, with U.S. oil up 0.6% and Brent oil up 0.66% as of 11:35. Previously, OPEC decided to keep its oil production policy unchanged. Two market participants from OPEC said on Thursday that the alliance will decide in March whether to extend the voluntary production cuts beyond the first quarter, after a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) did not adjust oil production policy. OPEC sources said the cuts would be assessed in March, when a statement would be issued when the cut plan expired, as is customary. Analysts at ANZ Research said in a note Friday that the cuts would keep supply tight in the first quarter and that non-OPEC production increases would normalize, with U.S. output growth slowing to 300,000 b/d this year from 800,000 b/d last year.
Yemen's Houthi attacks on Red Sea ships continue to disrupt global trade, raising geopolitical tensions and shipping concerns.
On Thursday, BP cleaned up its 435,000-barrel-per-day Whiting refinery in Indiana, after a transformer failure caused a power outage across the project and the company evacuated all workers in non-critical positions, people familiar with the plant's operations said.