New York When a trade jumps by 250% over the course of days, investors typically pop bottles of champagne. Between Friday, March 4 and Tuesday March 8, nickel futures did just that — soaring on the London Metals Exchange from about $29,000 to $100,000 per ton. But the champagne remains corked, investors are threatening to sue and the LME is hemorrhaging business.
So how did it happen? The tale that ensues involves billions of dollars, Russia, a Chinese tycoon known as"Big Shot," daytime drinking and a metal exchange stuck between two large rocks without a chisel. A sleeping giant awakensFor the majority of the last decade, nickel prices were boring. On the London Metal Exchange, the premier trading and price-formation venue for industrial metals, nickel traded between $10,000 and $20,000 per metric ton and moved about $100 each day.