"Want to see a real short squeeze? Come to the tin market"

From Reuters, February 5:

Finding financial market shorts to squeeze is this year’s investment rage.

After the Reddit assault on individual stocks, retail investors tried, unsuccessfully, to pull the same trick in the silver market.

Commodity markets are tougher to crack than individual shares, particularly if there’s no underlying shortage. Silver notched up consecutive years of oversupply between 2016 and 2019, according to the World Silver Institute.

Tin, by contrast, has been in three years of global supply deficit, according to the International Tin Association (ITA).

So if you want to see what a real commodity squeeze looks like, come to the London Metal Exchange (LME) tin market.

Stocks are nearly depleted, the contract is experiencing unprecedented degrees of technical tightness and the tin price is punching out seven-year highs.

The big short in the tin market is not a hedge fund but rather the physical supply chain, which is struggling to meet resurgent demand.

TIN TURNS WILD

There are currently 810 tonnes of registered LME tin stocks, which is a lot less than the 33,608 tonnes of silver sitting in London vaults at the end of December.

With 310 tonnes awaiting load-out, the physical liquidity base of the LME tin contract has shrunk to a record low of just 500 tonnes. That’s half a day’s worth of global consumption....

....MUCH MORE

I too have known the allure of tin.

From an April 2008 post, "Buy Tin": 

That was the cryptic message from a reformed metals trader this afternoon. No rationale, no investment thesis, just "buy tin".

I couldn't help thinking of the Barney Miller episode "Child Stealers".
Time traveler "Adam Boyer" comes back from 2057 and is hounded by Harris for stock tips:

[Harris, acting on a tip from a "twinkie" claiming to be a Sociology Professor from Columbia University who's traveled back in time from the year 2057 (played by the great character actor Richard Libertini), calls his broker to transfer his assets from gold bullion to the financial standard of the future--Zinc!!]:

"...no, no blue chips, either...I was thinking about Zinc! (pause) Yeah, Zinc! What's it goin for these days? (writing the figure on a notepad)...Thirty seven and a half cents---a POUND?? (The "Professor" gives Harris an encouraging nod)...Yeah, well, I might be willin' to spring for a coupla TONS!"
Source

Since the episode aired in January 1980 and zinc today is $1.075, zinc didn't do so hot (but much better than gold, which hit $850 that same month). Here's Kitco's zinc chart.

Here's Platt's on tin:

...Tin was once again a stand-out feature, although down $325 in premarket trade the metal still traded above $20,000/mt, at $20,175. As such, Indonesian tin major PT Timah posted net profit of Rupiah 1.78 trillion ($191.86 billion), up 757% from 2006. Timah attributed the higher net profit to better performance and higher global tin prices that were supported by a more favorable situation in the national tin industry. The trader said: "Tin still looks good, but it is a funny market. If you have a big position you need a good entry/exit strategy."

I might be willin' to spring for a coupla tons.