Business Times reported that the Kuala Lumpur Tin Market is expected to continue its downtrend this wee k amid uncertainty in the global market.

A dealer said that the bearish sentiment was expected to continue on weak manufacturing data from China and Europe with the prices expected to hover between USD 23,000 and USD 22,400 per tonne.

The HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index, a leading indicator of China's industrial activity fell for a fifth straight month to 48.1 in March. Meanwhile, manufacturing in both Germany and France, Europe's two biggest economies also posted a sharper than expected contraction this month with PMI manufacturing falling to a three month low of 47.7 while the PMI services declined to 4 month low of 48.7 in March.

The dealer said that we don't expect the prices to rebound in the near term in fact the downtrend that we saw in the last few days is expected to extend in the next few days as buyers are adopting a wait and see attitude.

For the week just ended, the prices on the local market fluctuated between USD 22,250 and USD 23,550 per tonne with demand mostly from European buyers. The tin price closed the week at USD 22,250 per tonne down USD 1,550 from USD 23,800 per tonne last Friday.

Turnover declined to 180 tonnes from 232 tonnes previously. The price differential between the KLTM and the LME stood at a premium of USD 540 on Friday compared with USD 500 last week.

Source - Btimes.com.my

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