By Leia Michele Toovey- Exclusive to Nickel Investing News

^[1]London Metal Exchange (LME) Nickel started the week on a sour note, continuing with the low levels that it had hit at the end of last week.

Nickel's drop came in as stockpiles in warehouses monitored by the LME advanced 378 tonnes to 51,864 tonnes, the highest since July 1999. Advancing stockpiles are a result of a struggling stainless steel sector.

On India's Multi Commodity Exchange, MCX, the scene was a little different. Indian copper futures traded at a one-week high on Monday as prices found support from a weak dollar and rising crude oil prices. At 4.30 p.m., the benchmark November copper MCCX8 was up 1.29 per cent at Rs 322 per kg. The dollar sank against the yen as skepticism grew over whether the U.S. government's mortgage debt bailout plan ^[2] would finally be the answer to increase woes on wall street.

Even though nickel is plunging, many mining companies are seeing impressive gains in stock prices.  Albidon Ltd ^[3], an Australian metals explorer, rose the most in almost four years in London trading after reporting a gain on the closure of its nickel hedge book and shipping the first nickel-concentrate from its Munali mine. Albidon closed in London up 19.3 per cent, the biggest jump since October 11, 2004. At that price, the company is valued at valuing the company at US$217 million.

Other news....

Junior mining company Melkior Resources Inc ^[4] (TSX.V: MKR) has finalized its acquisition of interests in a pair of northern Ontario nickel properties. The Ottawa-based company said on Tuesday that it had closed its 100 per cent purchase of the East Rim Nickel property, as well as a 50 per cent interest in the West Rim Nickel property. The East Rim property consists of 1,355 claim units totaling 21,680 hectares in the McFauld's Lake 'Ring of Fire' area of Northern Ontario, while the West Rim property consists of 916 claim units totaling 14,656 hectares.  In June, Melkior issued a private placement and with that raised $1 million to expand its exploration and drilling activities on the East and West Rim properties. The purchase of these properties required $306,000 in cash and the issuance of 2.5 million common shares.

European Nickel has been struggling with low stainless prices. In relation to that, Managing Director Simon Purkiss sold almost half his stake in the company to meet margin call requirements after a drop in the company's share price. Shares in the company hit a 52-week low of 12.25 pence earlier this month, but were trading unchanged at 15 pence in early trade on Tuesday.
 Senior economist David Wilson of Norilsk Nickel ^[5] is optimistic that nickel demand will start to pick up by the end of 2008. He points out that although the amount of primary metal being used by the industry is dropping, use of nickel-bearing scrap or secondary smelted nickel is expanding. Many companies made the move when the price of the primary metal skyrocketed. Stainless steel crude steel production decreased in the first half of 2008 by 1.8 per cent compared with the same period of 2007, and all stainless steel producing-countries except for China reduced their first-half 2008 production. China's production went up by 10 per cent. Elsewhere, the rates of decrease range between 6 and 13 per cent."  Looking forward, China, which is not rich in nickel resources, is expected to continue to be the main driver behind nickel demand.