Crude oil price (WTI), continues to zigzag as it rises for one day and falls in the next. Yesterday, it fell by over 2% after it had risen by over 1% in the previous day.
Bloomberg considers yesterday’s crude oil price fall to be related to the strengthening of the USD against the Euro due to expectations for good news in U.S. employment report, showing the U.S. continues its way to recovery.
And currently as crude oil prices is showing a small increase, Bloomberg considers this rise to be related to the U.S. employment report that investors expect it to show the U.S. economy is bouncing back…
I think it’s very hard to pinpoint what exactly is the cause of a small movement in a single day, let alone if a commodity such as crude oil behaves with no apparent trend as it rises for one day and falls in the next. Therefore, I think it will be best to just consider theses movements as trade noise for now until there will be a clearer pattern or trend to investigate.
The natural gas spot price (Henry Hub) continues to fall for the second straight day as it fell yesterday by 0.89%; the Nymex Henry Hub Future Price (futures for February) also continues to fall, this time it decreased by 0.88%; while natural gas spot price (NY city gate) keeps on rising yesterday it increased by over 6 %.
Gold and silver prices continue to fall for the third straight day, this time by 0.15% and 0.25%, respectively.
EURO/ USD continues to decrease as the USD is showing strength against the EURO; yesterday the EURO/ USD decreased by over 1% for the second straight day; the USD also continues to strengthen against the AUD, as the AUD/USD fell by nearly 0.5%.
A summary of yesterday’s Prices Changes:
The following table presents the main descriptive data from last business day – January 6th, for precious metals, energy commodities and exchange rates. The table includes: settled prices, daily percent change, and quantitative change in US dollars (except for USD/CAD, in which the change is in Canadian dollars):
For further reading:
- Crude oil price in 2010 and outlook for 2011 (in this site)
- Crude oil stocks review – Jan 6 (in this site)