Gold and Crude Oil Continued to Trade Up –Recap January 4

Gold price continued to rally and rose for the second consecutive day while silver prices changed direction and moderately declined; crude oil continued to trade up, while natural gas spot price declined. Major currencies such as Euro and Australian dollar changed direction and depreciated against the U.S dollar. Here is a summary of the price developments of precious metals and energy commodities for January 4th, 2012:

Precious Metals Prices:

Gold price rose on Wednesday by 0.76% to $1,612.70; Silver price on the other hand decreased by 1.61% to reach $29.10. During January, gold price increased by 2.9%, and silver price by 4.23%. 

The Euro/USD changed direction and fell on the second trading day of 2012 by 0.82% to 1.2944; the U.S Dollar appreciated against other currencies such as the Australian dollar.

Oil and Gas Prices:

WTI oil price slightly rose yesterday by 0.25% to $103.22 per barrel; Brent oil price also increased by 1.45% to $113.41 per barrel;

Due to these changes, the gap between Brent oil price and WTI oil prices sharply rose to $10.19/bbl. During January, WTI oil price rose by 4.4%, and Brent oil price by 5.4%.

Natural gas Henry Hub future price (February delivery) sharply rose  by 4.03% to $3.10 /mmbtu. The Henry Hub spot price on the other hand fell to $2.96 /mmbtu; the difference between the spot and future price increased to $0.14, 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):

 Gold price and Silver prices Crude oil prices, Natural gas spot price 2012  January 4

For further reading:

Weekly Analysis and Outlook:

 Monthly Analysis and Outlook: