(Bloomberg) -- The London Metal Exchange halted trading in its nickel market after an unprecedented price spike left brokers struggling to pay margin calls against deeply unprofitable short positions.
Nickel prices surged by as much as 250% over the past two days to hit record highs above $100,000 a ton, in the largest price move ever seen on the LME. The frenzied move came as investors and industrial users who had sold the metal scrambled to buy the contracts back, while brokers rushed to collect margin payments to cover their deeply unprofitable positions.
A unit of China Construction Bank (OTC:CICHF) was given additional time by the LME to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of margin calls it missed Monday, Bloomberg reported.
The suspension is for at least the remainder of Tuesday.
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