Tin futures in the UK fell to $54,200 per tonne from the record high of $56,800 on January 26th after the SHFE halted trading for a group of clients for not disclosing total positions, consolidating its effort to curb the metal’s speculative rally. The metal had surged over 40% this year alone due to tin’s soldering usage in electronic goods and datacenters, driving investors to go long their contracts in proxy to speculative bets in AI technologies. Trading volumes in Shanghai exceeded one million tonnes in a single session in the first week of the year, more than twice the world physical usage annually, prompting authorities to warn against “blindly following the trend” and prohibit a section of high-frequency trading firms from entering the market. Physical supply remained uncertain worldwide as Indonesian President Subianto ordered the closure of 1,000 illegal tin mines in Sumatra, lowering the output from the world’s second largest supplier.
