HANOI/MELBOURNE, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Steel-linked metals
nickel and zinc lost ground on Monday as expectations of weaker
demand from Chinese mills dented prices.
All other base metals fell amid caution ahead of trade talks
between United States President Donald Trump and Chinese
President Xi Jinping later this week.
"The market started to be really concerned about the
uncertainty of what the outcome will be from the U.S.-China
trade talk," said analyst Helen Lau of Argonaut Securities.
ZINC & NICKEL: Shanghai Futures Exchange zinc hit a
two-month low of 20,330 yuan a tonne, while London zinc
was down 0.46 percent at $2,507.5 a tonne, by 0429 GMT. London
nickel traded 1 percent weaker and Shanghai nickel
dipped 0.3 percent.
STEEL: Chinese iron ore futures tumbled nearly 6 percent and
steel prices dropped to their lowest in almost five months on
Monday as worries over weaker steel demand sustained a sell-off,
with raw materials coking coal and coal also down sharply.
CHINA GROWTH: China's economic growth is expected to hit 6.6
percent this year and slow to 6.3 percent in 2019 as the country
struggles with challenges relating to trade and structural
reform, economists from Beijing's Renmin University said.
CHINA-U.S.: A G20 summit scheduled later this week in
Argentina is expected to set a trade war turning point, when
leaders from the two biggest economies meet to address trade
tensions that have been increasingly hurting global growth.
COPPER: LME copper lost 0.4 percent to $6,182 a
tonne, while Shanghai copper dropped 0.6 percent to
49,310 yuan a tonne.
TIN: Shfe tin dived 1.9 percent and LME tin
prices slipped 0.6 percent amid rising stocks in China.
China's tin warehouse supplies have hit 8,200 tonnes, the
highest in more than a year and up by 73 percent from late
August. SSN-TOTAL-D
U.S. DOLLAR: The dollar rose versus its major peers on
Monday, as investors sought shelter in safe haven currencies as
fears of a global growth slowdown and U.S.-Sino trade tensions
sapped risk appetite. A stronger dollar makes it more expensive
to import greenback-commodities into countries using other
currencies.
