While the annual Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada gathering takes place across the border, in Toronto, Canada, much of the drinks reception talk on the opening night of the event on Sunday would have been about what was going on stateside. 

 

 

President Donald Trump's plans to tax steel and aluminium coming into the US swayed sentiment towards the big miners at the end of the week, resulting in only US-based producers of the two metals - or those US-based raw material miners - posting positive stock market movements. 

 

In terms of commodities, base metals were hit hard last week with LME cash aluminium down 3% to US$2,143 per tonne, LME copper down 2.5% to $6,887/t and LME nickel falling 2.3% to $13,412/t. 

 

Zinc, which lost 3.9% of its value over the past week, posted a 3.9% drop on the LME to $3,415/t. The galvanising metal continued falling and, at $3,358 per tonne late on Sunday night, was at a two-month low. 

 

In terms of the big diversified miners, Glencore was hardest hit, falling 8% to £3.65 per share (US$5.03/share) from Monday through to Friday. This was followed by BHP (AU:BHP) with a 6.8% loss, Rio Tinto (LN:RIO) with a 6% drop and Anglo American (LN:AAL) with a 5.6% decline.

 

Cleveland-Cliffs (US:CLF) was one of the rare gainers, up 5.4% as its US-focused steel raw material portfolio was bought on the back of Trump's protectionist policies. Steel producers Nucor (US:NUE) and US Steel (US:X) also gained 1.6% and 4.2%, respectively, for the week.