company as proxy to short nickel?

SanMiguel

Experienced member
Messages
1,136
Likes
25
Am unable to short the Nickel ETF at present due to stock borrowing restrictions. ANy ideas on a FTSE company that is heavily weighted to nickel that I could use as a proxy for this instead?
I could short the commodity but margin requirements are pretty high and wanted to keep it to a minimum for this one...

I thought about European Nickel but its market cap is too small and doesn;t have enough correlation with the commodity price.
 
Last edited:
Am unable to short the Nickel ETF at present due to stock borrowing restrictions. ANy ideas on a FTSE company that is heavily weighted to nickel that I could use as a proxy for this instead?
I could short the commodity but margin requirements are pretty high and wanted to keep it to a minimum for this one...

I thought about European Nickel but its market cap is too small and doesn;t have enough correlation with the commodity price.

Buy inverse Nickel ETF? SNIK?
 
Am unable to short the Nickel ETF at present due to stock borrowing restrictions. ANy ideas on a FTSE company that is heavily weighted to nickel that I could use as a proxy for this instead?
I could short the commodity but margin requirements are pretty high and wanted to keep it to a minimum for this one...

I thought about European Nickel but its market cap is too small and doesn;t have enough correlation with the commodity price.

Why do you want to short Nickel?

I ask as I’m currently long nickel and have recently added to my position as it’s performing well. It’s a very thinly traded market so you have to be careful what you trade if you trade the ETFs.

Talvivaara (TALV) is a larger cap company that’s focus is nickel and zinc mining. Although it has broken out to new highs at the moment, so you’d be trying to catch a top.
 
Here’s the charts from the LME if you are interested in nickel.
 

Attachments

  • Picture 58.png
    Picture 58.png
    50.7 KB · Views: 282
  • Picture 59.png
    Picture 59.png
    44.8 KB · Views: 303
Why do you want to short Nickel?

I ask as I’m currently long nickel and have recently added to my position as it’s performing well. It’s a very thinly traded market so you have to be careful what you trade if you trade the ETFs.

Talvivaara (TALV) is a larger cap company that’s focus is nickel and zinc mining. Although it has broken out to new highs at the moment, so you’d be trying to catch a top.

It's part of a pairs trade. Not that it will go down but it may underperform compared to copper, etc.
Metals are a tricky one at present what JPM cornering the copper market.
 
It's part of a pairs trade. Not that it will go down but it may underperform compared to copper, etc.
Metals are a tricky one at present what JPM cornering the copper market.

Nickel tends to be a leveraged play on copper, so is much more volatile. But it seems whenever copper goes up by say 1%, Nickel will be up 3%, so you need to be careful as it tends to outperform when there’s a bull move.
 
It's part of a pairs trade. Not that it will go down but it may underperform compared to copper, etc.
Metals are a tricky one at present what JPM cornering the copper market.

Trading the metals directly is tricky. It might be better to use two mining companies instead?
 
Here’s an excel spreadsheet I took from digital looks performance tables for the mining sector which might help.
 

Attachments

  • Mining Sector Performance.xls
    47.5 KB · Views: 325
Nickel tends to be a leveraged play on copper, so is much more volatile. But it seems whenever copper goes up by say 1%, Nickel will be up 3%, so you need to be careful as it tends to outperform when there’s a bull move.

Good point. I saw copper up 1% the other day but nickel was up 4.5%
question is when is the needed healthy correction coming?
...and how much does this JPM cornering of the Market affect it
 
Good point. I saw copper up 1% the other day but nickel was up 4.5%
question is when is the needed healthy correction coming?
...and how much does this JPM cornering of the Market affect it

I’m of the thinking that the markets can stay irrational, longer than you can stay solvent philosophy. Copper has broken out above it’s previous highs, so although a correction would be healthy, it might not come. Especially with the introduction of the new physically backed industrial metal ETFs listing on a few weeks back. Like the physical gold and silver ETFs did before, investor demand could push prices further than seems possible at the moment. So I’m staying in until the price action says otherwise.
 
I’m of the thinking that the markets can stay irrational, longer than you can stay solvent philosophy. Copper has broken out above it’s previous highs, so although a correction would be healthy, it might not come. Especially with the introduction of the new physically backed industrial metal ETFs listing on a few weeks back. Like the physical gold and silver ETFs did before, investor demand could push prices further than seems possible at the moment. So I’m staying in until the price action says otherwise.

Need an extra day or two to confirm that breakout as on the weekly chart, it's still in double top area.
Difficult to tell whether the action is short squeeze stuff or just plain full out buying.
There's some big divergence between the stock market and copper in the last week but can't really read much into anything at the moment due to low volume stuff around Xmas and NY.
 
Need an extra day or two to confirm that breakout as on the weekly chart, it's still in double top area.
Difficult to tell whether the action is short squeeze stuff or just plain full out buying.
There's some big divergence between the stock market and copper in the last week but can't really read much into anything at the moment due to low volume stuff around Xmas and NY.

I agree it’s too soon to confirm the breakout. It needs to retest the 4.000 area and hold the level to confirm the move. But there is also the possibility of it running away for a while first. I think it would dangerous to short here. I’d personally not short it unless it broke back below the 4 level.

I’ve attached the spot price 5 year chart from Kitco.
 

Attachments

  • Picture 70.png
    Picture 70.png
    34.7 KB · Views: 250
Not sure if they been mentioned yet but Norilsk might be good.
http://www.nornik.ru/en/about/
Listed in Russia but quite possibly traded in London on LSE via a GDR.

They have exposure to most of the metals including copper and palladium so probably not the best for a pairs trade on copper and nickel...but thanks.

with IG u can bet 1$/p on LME Nickel with a margin of 2200 $

http://www.igindex.co.uk/spread-betting/commodities-bet-details.html

Margin is too high for this as it's not an outright trade. I'm trying to build some pairs trades for the year for my pension account.

Buy inverse Nickel ETF? SNIK?

Might use this one as ETC Nickel can't be shorted at present on IG.

Why do you want to short Nickel?

I ask as I’m currently long nickel and have recently added to my position as it’s performing well. It’s a very thinly traded market so you have to be careful what you trade if you trade the ETFs.

Talvivaara (TALV) is a larger cap company that’s focus is nickel and zinc mining. Although it has broken out to new highs at the moment, so you’d be trying to catch a top.

Looks a bit close but same sort of issue in that it's not outright exposure to Nickel but a mix of metals like most mining companies.

Proving to be a tricky one. Perhaps, I'll just wait for a retrace and buy the likely dip in copper.
 
Top