Precious metals-related stocks saw active trading during the morning session on July 31st, with Zhaojin Mining hitting its daily limit up, Xiaocheng Technology surging over 9%, and a number of other stocks such as Chifeng Jilong Gold Mining, Western Gold, Zhongjin Gold, and Sichuan Gold also following with gains.
On the news front, the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association recently released an overview of the nonferrous metals industry's performance for the first half of 2026. Data shows that the prices of major nonferrous metals remained elevated in the first half of the year. However, these high prices simultaneously pressured downstream companies to accelerate material substitution, which, to some extent, compressed the space for demand growth in the industry.
Market prices underwent periodic adjustments in June. Of the 24 products monitored by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, 17 saw price declines month-over-month. Looking at the average prices for the first half of the year, 7 products recorded year-over-year decreases. However, prices for mainstream varieties, including copper, aluminum, gold, zinc, tungsten, and molybdenum, rose.
Based on data from the domestic spot market in the first half of the year, traditional metals showed mixed results. Apart from lead, whose average price fell 1.5% year-over-year to 16,649 yuan per tonne, other metals posted gains. The average price of copper was 101,964 yuan per tonne, up 31.4%; aluminum averaged 24,124 yuan per tonne, an increase of 18.8%; zinc averaged 24,276 yuan per tonne, a slight rise of 4.2%. In the precious metals sector, the average spot price of gold reached 1,058.4 yuan per gram, up 45.9%, while silver averaged 19.7 yuan per gram, a substantial increase of 141.1%.
Prices for new energy metals showed a diverging trend. Industrial silicon averaged 9,079 yuan per tonne, a decrease of 10.7%. Battery-grade lithium carbonate averaged 159,000 yuan per tonne, surging 128.1%. Nickel averaged 142,000 yuan per tonne, up 12.5%, while cobalt averaged 417,000 yuan per tonne, an increase of 101.5%.
According to the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, the industry's profitability saw a leapfrog improvement in the first half of the year. The 12,362 designated-size enterprises achieved combined revenue of 5.76968 trillion yuan, a year-over-year increase of 21.7%, and total profits reached 418.39 billion yuan, up 94.0%. The profit increment from this sector accounted for 32.6% of the total increase in profits for all designated-size industrial enterprises nationwide, contributing 6.1 percentage points to the overall profit growth of these enterprises. The profit growth rate of the nonferrous metals industry was among the fastest in the industrial sector.
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