Gold and silver continued their upward trend and moderately rose in Thursday’s trading; on the other hand, major energy commodities were traded down: crude oil prices declined, and natural gas price continued to sharply decrease. Major currencies appreciated against the U.S dollar. The recent ECB rate decision may have helped keep the Euro strong against the U.S. dollar. Here is a summary of the price developments of precious metals and energy commodities for January 12th, 2012:
Precious Metals:
Gold price rose again on Thursday by 0.49% to $1,647.70; Silver also moderately increased by 0.78% to reach $30.12. During January, gold price rose by 5.2%, and silver price by 7.91%.
The Euro/USD bounced back from Wednesday’s falls and rose yesterday by 0.86% to 1.2815; the U.S Dollar also depreciated against other currencies such as the Australian dollar.
Oil and Gas:
WTI oil price declined by 1.75% to $99.10 per barrel; Brent price also decreased by 1.25% to $111.04 per barrel;
Due to these changes, the gap between Brent oil price and WTI oil prices slightly rose to $11.94/bbl. During January, WTI increased by 0.3%, and Brent by 3.2%.
Natural gas Henry Hub future price (February delivery) declined again by 2.89% to $2.69 /mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot also sharply fell to $2.67 /mmbtu; the difference between the spot and future price rose to $0.02, i.e. Contango.
A Summary of Yesterday’s Prices:
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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