With the exception of iron ore, October was mostly positive for commodities – or rather less negative than September and the quarter ending September 30, when there was a stampede out of the sector.
Iron ore fell under $US50 a tonne by the end of the month and lost more than 10%.
But oil rose after the shellacking it took in September and in the September quarter.
Gold and silver nudged higher, however copper was again weak.
US oil futures settled higher on Friday for a gain of more than 3% on the odd belief that crude production will soon decline. The market has been wishing for that for months, without success.
In fact oil was in deficit for October until solid gains last week.
West Texas Intermediate type crude settled at $46.59 a barrel in New York, up 53 cents, or 1.2%, for the day.
That left prices up about 4.5% for the week, and about 3.3% from the $US45.09 a month ago.
In London, December Brent crude added 76 cents, or 1.6%, to finish at $US49.56 a barrel. Prices were up about 2.5% from the end of September.
The 6.3% surge in trading on Wednesday explains the week and month’s gain, but that was based on the very faint hope that supply-demand would return to balance sooner than previously thought.
Traders are “still responding mainly to changes in the supply and demand outlook” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets, in a quote on marketwatch.com.
Helping prices on Friday was the weekly report from oil services group, Baker Hughes which said the number of active US oil rigs fell by 16 to 578. The total US rig count also fell by 12 to 775.
December natural gas ended at $US2.321 per million British thermal units, up 6.4 cents, or 2.8%. But that was a worrying fall of more than 8% for the month. These are around three year lows and more and are bad news for companies like BHP Billiton and Shell and other gas producers from fracked well areas in the Midwest and Texas.
Meanwhile, gold futures lost $US5 at $US1,140 an ounce, for a five-day drop of $US23 an ounce.
Friday’s close was the lowest in more than three weeks.
Comex December gold fell $US5.90, or 0.5%, to settle at $US1,141.40, after that $US28.80, or 2.5%, slide on Thursday after the Fed indicated it was looking at December for a possible interest rate decision.
As a result, gold saw a weekly loss of about 1.8%, trimming its monthly gain to 2.4%. Gold is down around 3.7% since the end of last year, based on most-active futures contracts.
Comex December silver shed 1.7 cents, or 0.1%, to $US15.567 an ounce, for a monthly gain of around 7%.
And Comex December copper finished at $US2.318 an ounce, down less than half a cent. For the month copper lost 1%.
