Commodity Blog

Archive for November 4th, 2009

Crude oil gained after the U.S. inventories unexpectedly fell because of declining imports. Stockpiles of crude oil dropped last week to 335.9 million barrels from 3.94 million. Another reason for oil advance is rising equities and a declining U.S. dollar boosting the demand for commodities as an inflation hedge.

President of Strategic Energy & Economic Research said that “inventories are down because nobody wants to have excess supply on hand. The drop is not due to a tightening market.” President of Prestige Economics LLC thinks that “this is completely an import story.”

Supplies could fall even more if it weren’t for the decline in refinery runs. Refineries operated at 80.6 percent of capacity, compared to 1.2 percentage points in the previous week, the lowest rate since the week ended April 10th.

December delivery for crude oil gained $0.71 (0.9 percent) to $80.31 per barrel by 11:49 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Latest commodity prices (ICE, NYMEX, CME) as of 19:00 GMT:

Oil (Brent) — $78.26
Gold — $1,087.22
Silver — $17.35
Palladium — $324.50
Platinum — $1,358.04
Copper — $6,577.00
Aluminum — $1,917.00
Nickel — $18,000.00
Zinc — $2,245.00
Cocoa — $3,260.00
Sugar — $23.63
Corn — $385.00
Soybean — $37.91

This video offers a technical analysis overview of one of the most traded commodities — spot gold. It offers somewhat bullish point of view, implying that the gold has broken all three important resistance levels on its way to levels near near $1,100 per ounce. The presented analysis is partially based on the MACD and the Parabolic SAR indicators. The author of the video also suggests the gold rate has finally decoupled from other financial markets.