{"id":31294,"date":"2023-05-02T18:29:11","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T18:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/as-lithium-miners-gear\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T18:33:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T18:33:39","slug":"as-lithium-miners-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/as-lithium-miners-gear\/","title":{"rendered":"As lithium miners gear up for first-quarter earnings, investors focus on tumbling prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Arshreet  Singh<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) &#8211;     U.S. lithium miners Albemarle and Livent are expected to report a rise in quarterly profit this week, but investor focus will likely be on how they plan to navigate the slide in prices for the metal used in electric-vehicle batteries.<\/p>\n<p>Strong demand for EVs and limited supply of the metal pushed lithium prices to record levels in November last year, soaring more than ten-fold from early 2021.<\/p>\n<p>But a slump in demand for electric vehicles in China, the world&#8217;s biggest market, left a stockpile of the metal and drove prices down.<\/p>\n<p>Lithium prices have fallen by at least a third in the first quarter, according to an index tracked by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, raising concerns miners will see a hit to their bottomline.<\/p>\n<p>Earnings of Albemarle and Livent in the first quarter, however, are expected to reflect &#8220;peak spot price conditions&#8221; as the producers settled their lithium contracts before the steep fall in prices, according to Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar.<\/p>\n<p>Though falling spot prices have raised red flags for investors over the long-term outlook of lithium miners, analysts believe spot prices will rise again as we get closer to the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We expect pricing to find a bottom through the course of 2023 on the back of strong demand,&#8221; said Reg Spencer of Canaccord Genuity.<\/p>\n<p>In the long run, supply will continue to fall short of demand, which will help the miners, he added.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>(Graphic: Lithium prices fall&amp;nbsp; https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/graphics\/LITHIUM-PREVIEW\/zdpxdjrygpx\/chart_eikon.jpg)<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>QUARTERLY PROFIT<\/p>\n<p>Albemarle&#8217;s net income is expected to rise 311% from a year earlier, while rival Livent is likely to report a 111% increase, according to Refinitiv data.<\/p>\n<p>Albemarle, which supplies many of the world&#8217;s automakers, including Tesla Inc, is likely to see some impact from lower prices in the first quarter as &#8220;a subset of their contracts are on monthly status,&#8221; said Aleksey Yefremov, an analyst with KeyBanc Capital Markets.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>(Graphic: Share price performance https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/graphics\/LITHIUM-PREVIEW\/xmpjkqlgbvr\/chart_eikon.jpg)<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>Livent is expected to report first-quarter results on May 2 and Albemarle on May 3.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Arshreet Singh; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/as-lithium-miners-gear\/file-photo-albemarle-lithium-facility-in-silver-peak-nevada-u-s-4\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410QV-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410QV-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Arshreet Singh (Reuters) &#8211; U.S. lithium miners Albemarle and Livent are expected to report a rise in quarterly profit this week, but investor focus will likely be on how they plan to navigate the slide in prices for the metal used in electric-vehicle batteries. Strong demand for EVs and limited supply of the metal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":31295,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410QV-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31296,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31294\/revisions\/31296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}