A Biden victory would have little impact on prices

A lack of any detail in China’s Five-Year Plan and concerns about virus lockdown measures weighed on the prices of industrial metals this week. It now looks as though we will have to wait until Match for more information on the five-year plan. Next week, almost all attention will be on the outcome of the US presidential election. A Biden win and Democratic clean sweep of Congress appears to have all but priced into markets. Accordingly, if President Trump is re-elected, we could see falls in industrial metals prices, in particular, as hopes of an intensified push on (metals-intensive) green energy infrastructure would be dashed. Meanwhile, investor attention will also be focused on China’s October PMI data. Industrial metals prices could slip if, as we expect, the manufacturing PMIs are weaker than the consensus.