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Matt Fernley

Head of Research, Volta Fund; MD of Battery Materials Review

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Matt Fernley is MD at Battery Materials Review and Head of Research for Westbeck Capital's Volta fund. He is a highly sought-after expert on rechargeable batteries and battery materials markets.

Matt has spent over 20 years as an equity analyst, following Mining, Chemicals and Industrials sectors. Starting his career at Warburg Dillon Read (now UBS Investment Bank), he was an equity analyst and also a global strategist for Basic Materials (chemicals, mining, paper, steel, cement/aggregates). Latterly he was global strategist for the Chemicals sector. While at UBS his primary focus was on the growth of India and China and development of materials markets due to structural changes in demand. He used previous economic take-off events in the US, Japan and Korea to model trends in materials demand in China and India. He was then able to apply this work to food and made one of the earliest calls in the market on the importance of fertilisers and agrochemicals in early-2005.

Following UBS, he spent two years in hedge funds before joining GMP Securities (Europe) LLP as a Senior Mining Analyst and latterly Head of Equities Research. After GMP he was head of a small online property company for two years, before taking up the position of Materials & Cyclicals strategist at Haitong.

Matt has published extensively on the Mining sector as well as the development of key materials and equity price trends associated with secular demand events in raw materials.

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Latest Archive

How to forecast prices in a supercycle

Friday May 20, 2022 02:20PM

(Kitco commentary) - An increasingly common question over recent weeks and months has been "what is your long-term price for [insert battery material here]?"

Why I prefer nickel over copper Part 3: Short term outlook

Thursday April 14, 2022 06:42PM

(Kitco commentary) - So here I am with Part 3 of this article, with nickel prices well back off their highs but still up considerably (27%) from where they were on 1 March when I first started this series. During that time copper prices are up 1%.

Why I prefer nickel over copper. Part 2: What analysts are getting wrong on nickel

Thursday March 17, 2022 04:18PM

(Kitco commentary) - For much of last week, I wondered if writing the rest of this article might be effectively moot. But life goes on, and trading goes on too.

Why I prefer nickel over copper. Part 1: What analysts are getting wrong on copper

Tuesday March 1, 2022 02:14PM

(Kitco commentary) - OK, so IÃ¢??m slipping slightly outside the battery materials space here, but I hear and read a lot of rubbish being said/written about both of these metals and IÃ¢??d like to give my views, which are quite at odds with what much of the sell side is saying.

How high can the nickel price go?

Friday February 18, 2022 01:37PM

(Kitco commentary) - I am regularly asked in interviews how high different battery material prices can go. If I had a penny for every time people asked me what my outlook for lithium prices was, I wouldnâ??t have to be writing this drivel!

How high could lithium prices go?

Wednesday January 5, 2022 03:19PM

(Kitco commentary) - It's the question on everyone's lips and we had a crack at answering it in the December issue of Battery Materials Review.

Is it time for lower grade nickel sulphide projects to shine?

Wednesday December 22, 2021 12:52PM

(Kitco commentary) - The bidding war over Noront Resources and the flurry of nickel offtake agreements announced between automakers and nickel producers seems to suggest that EV and battery industry participants have (at last) woken up to the impending scarcity of class 1 nickel resources.