Major commodities prices took a dive yesterday and declined by the sharpest rate in recent months; some speculate that the trigger for this turn of events may have been the announcement in the recent FOMC meeting of no new stimulus plan; I suspect, gold and silver prices are strongly correlated with the expansion of the U.S. monetary base and therefore a lack of another stimulus plan prompted a dumping of commodities including gold. Gold and silver prices declined by the sharpest rate since September 23rd; crude oil prices also followed and sharply decreased; natural gas spot prices (Henry Hub) also slipped. Major currencies such as the Euro depreciated again against the US dollar. Here is a summary of the price developments of precious metals and energy commodities for December 14th:
Precious Metals Prices:
Gold price sharply declined on Wednesday by 4.58% and reached $1,586.90; Silver price also sharply decreased by 7.44% to reach $28.94. During December, gold price declined by 9.3%, and silver price by 11.8%.
The Euro depreciated again against the US dollar by 0.42% to 1.2982. The US Dollar also appreciated against currencies such as the Yen.
Oil and Gas Prices:
WTI oil price also sharply fell yesterday by 5.18% to $94.95 per barrel; Brent oil price also declined by 4.58% to $103.97 per barrel;
Due these changes, the difference between Brent oil price and WTI oil prices slightly rose to $9.02/bbl. During the month, WTI oil price declined by 5.4%, and Brent oil price by 6.6%.
Natural gas Henry Hub future price (January delivery) decreased by 4.57% to $3.13/mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot price also declined by 0.96% to $3.08/mmbtu; the difference between the spot and future price sharply fell to $0.05, 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: