Natural gas prices continue to rise while Gold and Silver flop – news update for December 8th

After crude oil prices increased for the last several days, they showed in the last couple of days a fall as it seems that Ben Bernanke’s appearance in 60 minutes had some influence on investors’ confidence in the US economy and the Fed’s capability in maintaining the US inflation. Nonetheless, there are doubts about the actual level of inflation in the US as forexcrunch tells us.

The same could be said on Silver and Gold as they too, for now, suffer a decline in their prices.

Natural gas prices continue to rise, and as we are progressing into the winter it will probably continue to rise. It’s hard to claim that the current rise is due solely to seasonality, as the prices are rising much more then the demand is for Natural gas in the US.

Prices:

Here is an update on the prices of main energy and precious metals commodities for December 8th:

Energy

The crude oil price of short term futures (Nymex) – delivery for January 2011, as of 17.42PM GMT, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, is currently traded at 88.25 USD per barrel, which represents a 0.44 USD/b decrease or a 0.5 % drop.

The Dated Brent spot crude oil is at 90.43 USD per barrel – a 0.33 USD per barrel decrease as of 17.53PM GMT.

The WTI spot price is trading as of 17.05PM GMT at 88.58 USD per barrel, a small fall of 0.12% compare to the previous business day’s rate.

Natural Gas future price, much like crude oil is still rising, and this time at least doing so moderately for now. Natural Gas prices (the Nymex Henry Hub Future) are currently traded as of 17.42 PM GMT, at 4.55 $ MMBTU (one million BTU), a 3.48% increase.

Precious Metals

Investors seem to gain some sanity as Gold prices for the last couple of days have been falling. In particular, gold short term January delivery future (Gold 100 oz.) is currently traded at 1,382.5 USD /t. oz., a moderate 1.88% decrease or 26.5 USD /t. oz. at 17.39 PM GMT.

Silver prices, much like Gold prices, are falling, and as of 17.39 PM GMT they are being traded at 28.405 $/t oz. a sizable 4.61% decrease or 1.372 $/t oz.

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