Given that uncertainty surrounding Chinese economic stability continues to be kept in mind by investors, both precious metal including gold and silver are managing to benefit from such conditions.
Precious metals were supported by a flight to safety across the board on Monday, as both gold and silver booked healthy gains in course of the first trading session this year. The yellow metal was the day's best performer with an increase of 1.3%, while silver added 0.4% yesterday.
Geopolitical tensions in the Middle East region paved the way for a rally among different commodities including precious metals and oil. The latter skyrocketed by more than 3% for Crude, while Brent added almost 5% on Thursday and during the early Monday trading.
Natural gas has partly erased strong gains from the several previous trading sessions, even despite positive weather forecasts which suggest that colder temperatures are coming to the US. Market concerns are again building around oversupply and weak demand next year.
Natural gas continued to be the leader in terms of daily price gains. It surged further by 5% on Tuesday and by 35% over the past seven trading sessions.
Gold prices have copied Crude and Brent oil at the very beginning of this working week. Broad weakness is dominating the commodity complex at the moment, and a similar situation is estimated to be in place for most of next year.
Commodities strengthened in course of Thursday, a last trading day of the previous week. Natural gas surged by 2.3% during the session, following encouraging US stockpiles report.
The majority of commodities posted a healthy rally on Wednesday of this week. Probably, the most watched and interesting component was oil in the past 24 hours.
Both energy and precious metals traded in a completely undecided environment on Tuesday. Separately, Crude oil rallied by almost one full percentage point, while Brent dipped by 0.7%.
Natural gas prices posted an extraordinary surge on Monday of this week, by rallying more than 8% over just one trading session, the strongest day-to-day growth since January. This component was boosted by cold US weather forecasts, which is likely to raise demand for the heating fuel.
Oil was the only commodity to trade in red on Friday, as the supply-driven story continues to spread across the markets. Investors are worried that demand will fail to cope with rising supply in 2016, meaning this factor will continue to create the bearish bias for prices.
The only bullish-performing commodity was corn on Thursday, which managed to rally by 1.2%. However, other components were precipitously losing value and the precious metals were those to drop the most.
Precious metals posted a clear surge in value yesterday, as gold and silver added 1% and 2.9%, respectively. These commodities had a positive response to the Federal Reserve's crucial and historical decision to hike the target range for the Federal Funds rate by 25 bps to 0.25-0.50%.
Yesterday both Crude and Brent oil jumped by 2.9% and 1.4%, respectively. This was a first confident day of gains in many weeks, as bearish traders decided to fix profit one day before the highly-volatile and uncertain FOMC decision.
Oil prices managed to stop dipping down on Monday, after a long losing streak we observed last week. They moved away from the multi-year lows and gained up to 2% yesterday.
Oil prices crashed by more than 3% on Friday, with Crude tumbling by 3.1% to trade $36 per barrel. Brent took an even sharper hit of 4.5%, which puts the spot price below $38.
Thursday used to be a red day for the vast part of commodities that are included in our daily review. Only corn managed to rise by 1.5% on a day-to-day basis, while pushing the benchmark S&P GSCI Index also into the positive territory (+0.15%).
Energy prices were again the main drivers for the commodity market on Wednesday of this week. Crude and Brent were dampened by supply/demand and continuous OPEC worries and therefore tumbled by 0.93% and 0.37%, respectively. Natural gas followed its peers to show a daily loss of about 0.4%.
Commodity market has somewhat bounced back on Tuesday, even though some noticeable losses were not completely avoided. Natural gas was the only energy commodity to rebound by 0.15%. On the other hand, oil prices continued to hover in red, as the post-OPEC market reaction remains in place.
A new commodity rout took place on Monday, with both appreciating US currency and supply/demand worries weighing on purchasing activity among investors. Oil prices experienced a major crash on Monday, by sliding down more than 5% on a daily basis.
Precious metals traded strongly to the north on Friday of the previous week, while fully reflecting the ECB decision to increase monetary support by less than it had been anticipated. Moreover, the US Dollar weakened considerably after US non-farm employment data, even though the numbers were fairly encouraging.
Markets were attempting to evaluate the expanded monetary stimulus from the European Central Bank on Thursday. Many of them were disappointed by the fact that the amount of monthly asset purchases is going to be unchanged at 60 billion euros, while the whole QE was extended by only six months through March 2017.
Commodity rout resumed on Wednesday, with all components but gold showing a loss of more than one full percentage point. The bullion has fallen six basis points short of dipping by 1%.
The most noticeable price divergence was observed between two types of oil on Tuesday. Crude added 0.8% yesterday, while Brent was the day's worst performer, as it lost almost 40 basis points. Energy prices continue to be volatile before two major this week's events including the US reserves data on Wednesday and OPEC meeting in Vienna on Friday.