Major commodities got a big bump yesterday after the news of EU leaders reaching an agreement on the debt crisis resolution, and the news of the U.S. GDP growth rate reaching 2.5% broke; these news items seem to have helped pull down the USD and consequently raise the prices of commodities including gold, silver and crude oil prices. On the other hand natural gas prices continued to trade with mixed trend as the spot price slipped while the short term future price sharply increased yesterday. Here is a summary of the price movements of precious metals and energy commodities for October 27th:
Precious Metals prices:
Gold price sharply increased again by 1.40% and reached $1,747.7 – the highest price level since September 21st; Silver price also shot up by 5.41% to reach $35.11. During October, gold price rose by 7.7% and silver price increased by 16.7%.
The Euro to US Dollar exchange rate sharply rose yesterday to 1.4189 – i.e. the USD depreciated against the Euro. Furthermore, the USD depreciated against other currencies including the GBP, CAD and AUD.
Oil and Gas prices:
WTI oil price changed direction again and sharply rose yesterday by 4.17% to $93.96 per barrel; Brent oil price also inclined by 1.94% to $113.24 per barrel;
Due these changes, the gap between Brent and WTI shrunk to $19.28/bbl. During October, WTI oil price rose by 14.8%, and Brent oil price increased by 7.4%.
Natural gas Henry Hub future price (November delivery) sharply increased by 4.74% to $3.76/mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot price on the other hand decreased by 1.64% to $3.59/mmbtu; the gap between the spot and future price sharply rose to $0.18, i.e. Contango.
A Summary of Yesterday’s Prices Changes:
The table below includes: closing prices, daily percent change, and change in prices and indexes in USD (except for USD/CAD, in which the change is in Canadian dollar):
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