• Nickel and palladium prices rose overnight after the UK announced sanctions against Norilsk Nickel chairman Vladimir Potanin
  • Investors aren’t biting on the sugar hit, with nickel miners joining the broader market in the red
  • Big iron ore miners led a 2.83% drop for the materials sector

 

The idea that stocks follow moves in underlying commodity prices, at least once they’re producing the stuff, is fairly well established.

But investors have become more wary as inflation and interest rates have killed the bullish mood we enjoyed in late 2021 and early 2022.

Nickel and palladium prices received a sugar hit overnight after the UK announced sanctions on a mate of Putin’s, Vladimir Potanin, one of many oligarchs to feel the wrath of western sanctions since Russia invaded its neighbour Ukraine.

His firm Norilsk Nickel is the world’s largest supplier of class 1 nickel and palladium.

The latter soared as high at 9.2% during the trading day to US$25,295/t, delivering brief flashbacks of the insane short squeeze that sent prices soaring very briefly above US$100,000/t in March.

It pulled back to US$23,773/t, a 2.7% gain, while palladium briefly topped US$2000/oz before closing up 4.8% at US$1968/oz.

 

Did this do much for stocks?

Nope. Investors kept to the sidelines, potentially for good reason since rallies in base metals over the past month have large been dead cat bounces.

Nickel miners Mincor (ASX:MCR), Nickel Mines (ASX:NIC), Panoramic (ASX:PAN) and IGO (ASX:IGO) were all in the red, with only Poseidon Nickel (ASX:POS) bucking the trend with a 4.44% gain.

Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN), owner of the nickel and palladium rich Julimar discovery, was down 1.31%.

It came amid a late drop for markets led by the large iron ore miners, with materials sliding 2.83% and the energy sector down 2.46%.

In key global economic data, China’s manufacturing PMI came in at 50.2 for the month of May, slightly below consensus expectations of 50.5.

 

Nickel miners share prices today:

 

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