Gold and silver ended the week rising after they had slipped on Thursday; energy commodities prices including oil prices declined; natural gas prices sharply fell again on Friday; the Euro and other currencies such as Canadian dollar slightly depreciated against the USD on Friday. Here is a summary of the price developments of precious metals and energy commodities for January 20th, 2012:
Precious Metals :
Gold price rose on Friday by 0.57% to $1,664.0; Silver price sharply increased by 3.82% to reach $31.68. During January, gold price increased by 6.2%, and silver price by 13.47%.
The Euro/USD slipped yesterday by 0.29% to 1.2931; the U.S Dollar appreciated against other currencies such as the Australian dollar.
Oil and Gas :
WTI decreased by 1.92% to $98.46 per barrel; Brent also decreased by 1.13% to $109.63 per barrel;
Due to these changes, the gap between Brent oil price and WTI oil prices increased to $11.17/bbl. During January, WTI crude oil price fell by 0.4%, but Brent oil price rose by 1.9%.
Henry Hub future price (February delivery) slightly rose by 0.86% to $2.34/mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot sharply declined to $2.25/mmbtu; the difference between the spot and future price rose to -$0.09, 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: