Gold rose, oil was easier ahead of the OPEC meeting overnight and other commodity markets were mixed, despite some weakness in the US dollar.
Copper finished higher on Friday after a two day drop as investors fretted about the strength of the Chinese economic recovery, if it is happening.
Falls in stocks in Europe and Asia helped assure investors that ‘something’ was going on, but was left up to them to work out just what.
Stocks monitored by the London Metal Exchange slid 1.3% to a five-week low of 497,625 tonnes on Friday, down 9% from a five-year high in late February.
Stocks monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 10% last week to 34,735 tonnes, leading investors to conclude that the recent steady buying from China has been confirmed as the country’s buying agency takes delivery of its purchases.
Based on the steady Chinese buying, copper prices are up 18% so far this year.
But prices ended the week off 1.5% after a 2.5% rise on Friday to a closing $US1.6645 a pound in New York on Comex.
Wheat fell on speculation that US stocks will rise after farmers boosted output and exports slowed.
The United States Department of Agriculture reckons America’s wheat stocks could rise to 712 million bushels in the year ending May 31.
In an update last week, the department said this would be over 50 million bushels higher than last month’s forecast of 655 million bushels and more than double the total held a year earlier.
Wheat prices are down 58% in the past year.
And on Friday CBOT wheat futures for May delivery fell 1.3% to $US5.1825 a bushel: the price fell 1.7% last week.
Gold rose for a third straight day with April Comex futures finishing up $US6.10 at $US930.10 an ounce.
The price rose nearly 4% over the final three days of the week but that wasn’t enough to offset the earlier weakness and the metal closed down 1.3%.
It was interesting that the three days of rises came as US and global sharemarkets had their best time since last November.
The US dollar weakened towards the end of the week after the Swiss central bank’s surprise intervention to sell its currency and buy US dollars and euros.
That helped gold Thursday and Friday.
May Comex silver futures rose 27.2 USc, or 2.1% Friday to $US13.215 an ounce. That still left it down around 1% over the week, but still up 17% since the start of 2009.
Bloomberg said the SPDR Gold Trust’s holdings surpassed Switzerland’s on Thursday, making the Exchange Traded Fund the world’s sixth-largest holder of bullion, based on data from the producer-funded World Gold Council.
