Zinc futures fell 1% to around $3,280 per tonne on January 16, retreating from a near three-year high reached on January 15, after Chinese regulators cracked down on high-frequency trading. Chinese authorities ordered exchanges, including the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the country’s main metals trading hub, to remove high-frequency trading servers from their data centers. The move weighed on metals across the board, with zinc sliding in both Shanghai and on the London Metal Exchange (LME). Earlier this week, zinc prices had surged on a wave of investor enthusiasm for real assets, ongoing concerns over tight supply, and expectations that the push for electrification and datacenter expansion would sustain industrial demand despite global growth headwinds. The recent regulatory action interrupted this rally, highlighting how policy measures can influence short-term market swings.
