Commodity Blog

Archive for March 16th, 2010

Wheat advanced after the dollar fell, spurring appeal of the grain to overseas buyers. The dollar slid 0.5 percent versus a basket of six major currencies. May futures for wheat delivery advanced $0.0525 (1.1 percent) to $4.845 per bushel by 9:54 on the Chicago Board of Trade.

Copper climbed to the two-week high as the weaker dollar boosted demand for commodities as an inflation hedge. Price also jumped as inventories of LME-monitored copper dropped to 528,050 metric tons, the lowest level since January 20th. Delivery for copper in three months climbed $108 (1.5 percent) to $7,413 a metric ton as of 17:59 on the LME.

Cocoa price slipped to the seven-month low on speculation that growing supplies will decrease demand. Hedge-funds and other speculators cut their bets on increasing prices by 21 percent in the week ended March 9th. May futures for cocoa delivery slipped $18 (0.6 percent) to $2,848 per metric ton on ICE.

Latest commodity prices (ICE, NYMEX, CME) as of 16:51 GMT:

Oil (Brent) — $80.33
Gold — $1,123.03
Silver — $17.33
Palladium — $471.50
Platinum — $1,621.88
Copper — $7,420.00
Aluminum — $2,254.00
Nickel — $21,851.00
Zinc — $2,309.00
Cocoa — $2,852.00
Sugar — $18.39
Corn — $365.50
Soybean — $940.75

Jonathan Barratt, Managing Director of Commodity Broking Services, is interviewed in this video on the current situation in the commodity market. The China’s growth is slowing, the AAA-grade credit ratings of the U.S. and the United Kingdom may be revised by Moody’s and Greece isn’t getting much help from the fellow Eurozone members. But Jonathan remains rather positive on the commodities, believing that the problems aren’t that serious as the media is trying to show them and they will be solved, while the global demand for commodities remains. Even if China will be growing more slowly it will still need commodities to fuel that growth.