The week started with sharp falls across the boarder at many financial markets including stocks, forex and commodities markets. This may have been stem, in part by the markets reactions to Friday’s EU Summit that didn’t reach the expectations of many traders. Moody’s also jumped into the wagon and stated it will review the credit rating of all EU countries. As a result commodities prices sharply declined yesterday: Gold and silver prices sharply fell; crude oil prices also declined; natural gas spot prices (Henry Hub) also took a dive. Major currencies such as Euro and AUD also led the freefall and sharply depreciated against the US dollar. Here is a summary of the price developments of precious metals and energy commodities for December 12th:
Precious Metals Prices:
Gold price sharply declined on Monday by 2.83% and reached $1,668.20; Silver price also sharply fell by 3.88% to reach $31.00. During December, gold price declined by 4.7%, and silver price by 5.5%.
The Euro sharply depreciated against the US dollar by 1.48% to 1.3188. The US Dollar also sharply appreciated against currencies such as the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar.
Oil and Gas Prices:
WTI oil price fell yesterday by 1.65% to $97.77 per barrel; Brent oil price also declined by 1.85% to $106.72 per barrel;
Due these changes, the difference between Brent oil price and WTI oil prices slightly fell to $8.95/bbl. During the month, WTI oil price declined by 2.6%, and Brent oil price by 4.1%.
Natural gas Henry Hub future price (January delivery) fell by 1.81% to $3.26/mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot price plummeted by 5.17% to $3.12/mmbtu; the difference between the spot and future price rose to $0.14, 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):
For further reading:
Weekly Analysis and Outlook:
Monthly Analysis and Outlook: