Global metal frenzy can't stop! After the craziness of "god copper," it's now the turn of "tin madness." LME tin price breaks through $51,000 to hit a record high.

The tin industrial metal trading price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) has broken through a major milestone of $51,000 per ton in the London market, continuing the bull market trend of LME tin prices that has lasted for three years. With Chinese investors buying frantically, the global metal market, including tin, is continuing its strong momentum from the end of 2025 into 2026. On Wednesday, LME tin prices rose by as much as 4.3%, reaching $51,675 per ton, surpassing the previous record set in 2022. The core logic behind the sharp rise in LME tin prices at that time was the continuous surge in global demand for tin in the electronics industry during the global supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. This industrial metal, used for soldering, has always been seen as an important indicator of the prosperity of the electronic computing and consumer electronics industries, leading to a large influx of global funds into the tin trading market, accompanying a strong investment wave in AI training/inference computing infrastructure and the construction and expansion of data centers. Typically, LME tin is the least liquid metal among the six metals traded on the London Metal Exchange, yet it saw an increase of nearly 40% last year, and has risen by over a quarter since the beginning of 2026. This surge in prices is fueled by Chinese investors pouring into the global precious and industrial metal markets, with some large stock funds also betting on a significant rise in commodity futures along with the stock market. The trading volume on the Shanghai tin market has surged in line with the influx of funds into the Chinese stock market, leading to the Shanghai tin price also hitting a new historical record on the Shanghai Metal Futures Exchange, increasing by almost 9% to reach a historical high of 413,170 yuan ($59,212) per ton. In the Shanghai tin futures market, the tin price has hit the daily limit for the second time this week. Commodity traders worldwide are closely monitoring the tin supply situation in Indonesia, the second largest tin producer globally. The recent crackdown by the military on illegal mining in Indonesia has begun to seriously affect supply in major tin-producing areas. November exports have almost tripled, but it is unclear whether this rebound can be sustained, especially as the Indonesian government has yet to approve mining quotas this year. Currently, the tin market does not show signs of extreme tightness in supply like silver and copper. LME tin inventories have risen to the highest level in 11 months. The futures price of this industrial metal is significantly higher than the spot price, creating a so-called "forward premium" in the market structure, which usually indicates that industrial metal supply remains sufficient. During Asian trading on Wednesday, in addition to the rise in tin prices, LME copper, aluminum, and zinc prices also increased. After the continuous record highs of LME copper, aluminum, nickel, and other industrial metal prices, with LME copper repeatedly reaching historical highs, it is tin's turn to shine after this temporary correction. Finally, today, tin prices have hit a new historical high, with a gain of over 25% so far this year. This uptrend from the mainstream metal (copper) to the secondary metal (tin) can be understood as a sign that it is "tin's turn to lead" in the market. At this stage, aluminum, zinc, lead, and nickel prices in the industrial metal market are all experiencing a strong uptrend under the backdrop of geopolitical situations and a new round of global defense and military competition, but they have yet to reach historical highs. From a fundamental demand perspective, the copper, aluminum, and other industrial metals that have seen sustained increases have clearer structural demand support. For example, the recent sharp rise in LME copper prices, known as the "copper doctor," is primarily due to its strong and rapidly growing demand in global large-scale infrastructure projects such as electrification, renewable energy, electric vehicles, AI data centers, among others, while the supply side is constrained by long-term underinvestment, reinforcing bullish expectations. Although aluminum is not as scarce as copper, its demand logic is similar, so demand is also strong, benefiting from loose macroeconomic conditions and capital inflows. Nickel has also rebounded due to factors such as tightening Indonesian supply policies and the recovery of stainless steel demand. The rising logic of tin shares similarities with the aforementioned metals as well as unique characteristics. LME tin itself has the lowest liquidity, making it one of the weakest markets among the six major metals, with its warrants, inventory, and supply being more easily driven up by funds. In addition, tin is stable in the amount used for soldering in the electronics industry and closely related to the electronic industry chain of AI computing clusters, data center construction, thus being boosted in the heat of capital chasing industrial metals. While tin supply is not truly tight (inventory data shows no obvious physical supply tension), market expectations, speculative buying, and the chasing of price hikes have all helped push tin prices to new highs.