The data depicts average monthly variations in the costs of copper, nickel and zinc in the year 2014.
Overall, nickel started with the highest percentage, but ended the year with the lowest. At the same time zinc began with the lowest percentage change, but ended up with the highest. Copper prices changed the least over the year. Prices for all three metals dipped in the month of June.
Zinc showed a dramatic increase from 1% to 3% at the start of the year, before dropping suddenly to -1% by June. Thereafter, it remained relatively stable till November, before shooting up to 2% by the end of the year. In contrast, copper began the year with a dip in prices, going from 2% in January to around –-0.5% in June. Afterwards, it went up one and a half points to 1%, and remained mostly consistent at this level until it had a modest increase to 1.5% in December.
On the other hand, nickel started in January with the highest percentage (6%), but it fell rapidly in the first half of the year, reaching it’s lowest of -3% in June. Subsequently, it went up slightly to -1% in July and stabilized for 3 months before dropping back down to -2% in October. Finally, nickel prices shot up dramatically to 1% in November, and stayed the same till the end of the year.