Base metals gains on US employment data

Favorable employment data from the US coupled with weakness in the US dollar helped base metals complex to trade higher on the LME on Thursday. In addition to this, positive sentiments in the global financial markets also supported prices to rise. The US dollar depreciated almost 1 percent and closed at 76.34 yesterday.
Nickel was the best performer of the day, as the metal gained around 4.3 percent on the LME and around 3.5 percent on the MCX. Prices touched an intra-day high of $26,000/tonne and closed at $25,925/tonne on Thursday.
The metal prices traded higher mainly on the back of a weaker dollar, improved equity markets and fall in the LME inventories. Nickel inventories declined 0.8 percent to 125,598 on the LME warehouse yesterday. On the MCX, Nickel March contract touched an intra-day high of `1178.50/kg and closed at `1174.10/kg yesterday.
Copper prices gained around 3.5 percent on the LME Thursday and touched an intra-day high of $9585/tonne.
Factors that influenced metal prices were –dollar weakness, favourable data from the US and positive market sentiments. On the MCX, prices gained almost 3 percent and touched an intra-day high of `437.90/kg.
Outlook
We expect base metals prices to trade higher today, mainly taking cues from optimistic employment data released from the US yesterday, a weaker dollar and rise in risk appetite.

(Source: http://www.commodityonline.com/futures-trading/technical/Base-metals-gains-on-US-employment-data-22669.html)