Last Updated : June 18, 2010 11:45
Daily review on Bullion, Energy, Base Metals
BULLION Precious metals climbed out of the range it had been trading during most of the week and moved up, reaching up near towards the all time high on the penultimate trading day as safe haven demand for the metal returned. The gains in the yellow metal also came when the US currency fell against its European counterpart.
The auction for Spanish bonds worth 3.5 billion Euros took place on Thursday, which allayed some fears of crisis in the European Union and helped Euro erase some of its losses. Government report showed that the unemployment claims climbed more than expected during the previous week, which gave rise to skepticism about the economic recovery in the US.
Another data showed that Philadelphia Federal Reserve's June U.S. Mid-Atlantic factory activity survey tumbled. U.S. gold futures for August delivery GCQ0 on the COMEX division of the NYMEX surged $18.20 to finish at $1,248.70 an ounce. The world's largest gold-backed exchange-traded fund, SPDR Gold Trust said its holdings rose to a record high at 1,307.963 tonnes as of June 17 from 1,306.137 tonnes.
ENERGY Crude oil futures, on the other hand, slid on Thursday as weak economic data and falling stock markets weighed on the sentiment. Light, sweet crude oil for July delivery settled down 88 cents, or 1.1%, at $76.79 a barrel on Thursday at the Nymex. Worries of an oversupplied market also helped in turning the sentiments negative.
The EIA data released on Wednesday showed that inventories of crude oil rose by 1.7 million barrels during the previous week when expectations were it to decrease by 1.3 million barrels. There were expectations that stocks at Cushing will continue to rise as a 55000 per day refinery owned by Valero Energy Corp in Texas will be shut down for a month.
Natural gas prices, unlike crude oil, gained on Thursday following the release of the report from Energy Information Administration of US, which showed that inventories of natural gas climbed last week but lesser than expected. The inventories of natural gas rose by 87 billion cubic feet amounting to a total of 2.543 trillion cubic feet.
EIA also pointed out that the inventories remained 14 percent higher than the five year average. The July natural gas contract added 18 cents, or 3.7%, to settle at $5.16 per million British thermal units.
BASE METALS Base metals prices climbed down on Thursday with copper, hitting one week lows, following weaker than expected economic data and falling stock markets. The metals had slid even in the midst of dollar weakness.
According to the Philadelphia Federal Reserve, the factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic region of US fell in June. In addition, unemployment claims were reported to have climbed and consumer prices recorded their largest decline in almost one and a half years, affirming the near zero interest rate regime in US.
Three-month copper futures declined 0.8 percent to $6,600 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange, dropping for a second day. Aluminum and zinc also fell, while tin gained. Copper markets were in surplus during Jan-April 2010 by 177000 tonnes this compares to a surplus of 290000 tonnes in whole of 2009 as per the latest report from World Bureau of Metal Statistics.
Courtesy: JRG Commodities Research
MCX CARDAMOM 01 January 2020
contract was trading at
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