Gold and silver changed direction and traded down along with the rest of the market following the announcement that S&P will cut the credit rating of France and Austria from AAA to AA+. The other leading rating agencies left these countries’ rating unchanged for now. This news pulled down not only commodities prices but also the Euro and other currencies against the U.S. dollar: crude oil prices moderately declined, natural gas price also continued to decrease. Major currencies such as Euro and Australian dollar sharply fell. Here is a summary of the price developments of precious metals and energy commodities for January 13th, 2012:
Precious Metals:
Gold changed direction and sharply fell on Friday by 1.05% to $1,630.80; Silver also declined by 2% to reach $29.52. During January, gold price rose by 4.1%, and silver price by 5.76%.
The Euro/USD sharply fell yesterday by 1.05% to 1.268; the USD also appreciated against other currencies such as the Canadian dollar.
Oil and Gas:
WTI oil price declined by 0.4% to $98.70 per barrel; Brent price also decreased by 0.15% to $110.87 per barrel;
Due to these changes, the gap between Brent price and WTI prices moderately rose to $12.17/bbl. During January, WTI oil price declined by 0.1%, while Brent oil price rose by 3.1%.
Natural gas Henry Hub future price (February delivery) fell again by 0.74% to $2.67 /mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot price also fell to $2.66 /mmbtu; the difference between the spot and future price slipped to $0.01, i.e. Contango.
A Summary of Yesterday’s 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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