Natural gas begins the week with a fall – Dec 27

The long holiday weekend is behind us, however this week will probably won’t be much different as the New Years is upon us.

The trade for this week started at a slow pace with Crude oil prices moderately falling.

Natural gas prices – Nymex Henry Hub Future – are also showing a decrease of nearly 1.62%, which is part of the ongoing fall of this commodity for the month of December. This fall is due despite the rise in consumption for Natural gas in the U.S and Europe.

Consider that Bloomberg claims that investors who bought 10 year U.S. government bonds will barely see a one percent yield gain for 2011. The predicted rise in yield is from an average 3.25% in 2010 to an expected 3.65% in 2011, however, the second quantities easing, could reduce the value of the USD and reducing the yield ; thus this could mean that government T bond will still not be that attractive investment in 2011. This could have an effect on the prices of major commodities such as Gold and Silver which many investors turned to invest in, since the economic rescission had begun back in 2008.

Prices:

Here is an update on the prices of main energy and precious metals commodities for December 27th (all times GMT):

Energy

The Nymex crude oil price, short term futures (February 2011 delivery), on the New York Mercantile Exchange, is traded at 91.43 USD / barrel, which is a 0.08 USD/b decrease or a 0.09% fall, as of 09.17 AM.

The Dated Brent spot crude oil is at 93.64 USD / barrel – a 0.66 USD/ barrel increase as of 09.26 AM.

Nymex Henry Hub Future (Natural Gas price) is traded at 4.02 USD/ MMBTU (one million BTU), a decrease of 0.07 USD/ MMBTU, or -1.62%, as of 09.15 PM. This fall is for the second straight business day; So far, for the month of December the price trend is downward as it began the month at 4.27 USD/ MMBTU. As of today the current rate represents a 6% decline. Nonetheless, the Nymex Henry Hub Future showed last week a zigzag behavior with one day it rises and other day it falls.

Precious Metals

Gold price, short term February delivery future, after last week moderate decline, is traded at 1,383 USD /t. oz., a moderate 0.22% increase or 3.1 USD /t. oz. at 09.12 AM.

Silver price, unlike Gold price, started the week falling, and as of 09.12 AM is traded at 29.24 $/t oz. a 0.3% decrease or 0.088 $/t oz.

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