Trading volumes surge as investors return to base metals

The boom times are back for base metals traders. Over 17 million contracts traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) in April, making it an all-time record month in outright volume terms. Expressed in average daily volumes, activity was the second highest on record after April 2018. That was the month the U.S. government announced import duties on aluminium, a shock to global trade patterns that generated a one-off volume spike on the LME aluminium contract. This time around the lift in activity has played out across all six of the LME's core base metals contracts. Even nickel is back…