Market landscape after the weekend. Metals are on the attack, cryptocurrencies are trying to regain the trend

Despite the weekend's events regarding Iran's retaliatory attack on Israel Today, financial markets do not seem to panic, which may be due to two factors. The first one is probably that already on Friday we could observe a significant positioning of the markets for the announced retaliation in the form of rising prices of contracts for oil, gold, a drop in share prices or a sale of, for example, the Polish currency. The market could then price in the weekend events.

Secondly, the defense of Israel and its allies was so effective that the retaliation did not cause serious damage, and the Iranian side considered the operation a success and declared that it had no intention of continuing its actions. Now the answer lies with Israel, but it seems that after the arrangements with the US president, it will probably not escalate this conflict. This, in turn, may translate into a lack of market panic today and even a return of risk appetite (unless escalation actually occurs).

Metals - this is where the biggest changes have taken place

However, the biggest changes are taking place in the price of metals and this is not a direct result of retaliation, but of sanctions imposed on Russia. London Metal Exchange (LME) on Saturday banned exports of Russian metal produced on or after April 13 to comply with new sanctions imposed by the US and UK over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The sanctions aim to limit Russia's revenues from exports of metal produced by companies such as Rusal and Nornickel, which help finance its military operations in Ukraine. The US Treasury and the British government on Friday banned the LME and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) from accepting new Russian production of aluminum, copper and nickel, Reuters reported. The exception is metals produced before April 13.

As a result, aluminum futures rose almost 10% to over $2700 per tonne, the highest level since June 2022. Copper also rose to the highest level since June 2022.

Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are trying to recover

The greatest declines as a result of retaliation were observed in: cryptocurrency market. The total depreciation of bitcoin on Friday and Saturday was about 14%, which is not a big correction, as it can look like on this market with declines of 20-30%. This scale of declines was observed on altcoins, including ETH, which also dropped by about 20% over the two days mentioned.

However, on Sunday and this morning, cryptocurrencies seem to be turning around and becoming more expensive again, which may also be supported by the information that the Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong on Monday approved applications from leading financial institutions, including China Asset Management, Bosera Capital and HashKey Capital Limited, to launch spot ETF funds for bitcoin and ethereum. All this in the week before the halving, which is scheduled to take place in 4 days on April 20, which will make bitcoin an even "rare commodity".