Gold had its best week last week since July 2013, with a near 5% rise amid fears of a slowdown in major economies such as the US and China and a slowing in the pace of US interest rate rises. In contrast oil futures had a losing week – the fist in three.
Iron ore futures edged higher, topping the $US45 a tonne mark in northern China ahead of the start of the week-long holiday for the Lunar New Year.
The price ended up 0.5% at $US45.73 a dry tonne, a new four-month high.
And it was the best week since last April for the commodity with a near 8% price rise. Last April it jumped nearly 13% in a single week. Weather related slowdowns in shipping form Australia and Brazil and buying ahead of the holidays in China this week, were the factors behind the rise.
Analysts expect the price to start easing in coming days though.
Comex gold futures in New York jumped $US17 on Friday night despite a solid January jobs report (151,000 new jobs and a jobless rate under 5% at 4.9%).
While that was weaker than January’s huge month, it was enough to get some analysts wondering if a rate rise is back on the agenda for the Fed this year.
A stronger than expected rise in US wages also worried investors – although we are only talking about wage rises of 2.5%, which is lower than the 2.7% annual rate reported several months earlier.
But gold shrugged off those feelings and finished sharply higher at $US1,173.40 an ounce – taking its gain for 2016 so far to 10.6%. Helping gold higher (and oil and other commodities) has been the weakness in the US dollar which fell 2.7% last week.
Comex March silver rose 18 cents or 1.2% to $US15.03 an ounce, for a weekly gain of 5%.
Comex March copper finished at $2.09 a pound, down 3 cents or 1.4%, for a gain of 1.6% for the week.
In London three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange lost 1.2% to close at $US4630 a tonne.
LME zinc, the best performer on the LME so far this year, lost 2.2% to finish at $US1677 a tonne on Friday, but still gained over 3% in the week.
Aluminium fell 2.3% to end at $US1500, fell almost 2% to close at $US1770, nickel slumped 4.4% to $US8,160 while tin rose 1% to end the week on $US15,150 a tonne.
Oil fell sharply last week, despite some wild moves over the week.
US West Texas Intermediate crude for March delivery dropped 83 cents to close at $US30.89 a barrel in New York for a loss of 8.1% over the week.
Worrying traders was another rise in US oil stocks – they are now over 500 million barrels, the highest level since 1930!
The weekly Baker Hughes survey of oil rig use in the US dropped 31 last week – the biggest fall in 11 months. The number of natural gas rigs dropped 17 to 104, bringing the total down by 48 to 571. Oil rigs fell by 14.
In London, Brent crude futures lost 40 cents, or 1.2%, to $34.06 a barrel, down more than 5% lower on the week.
On Nymex in New York, petrol prices ended below $US1 a gallon for the first time since late 2008. March gasoline futures fell 3.6 cents, or 3.5%, to 99.27 US cents a gallon, for a weekly loss of more than 12%.
And March natural gas futures added 9.1 cents, or 4.6% on Friday, to $US2.063 per million British thermal units, but still fell 10.2% over the week.
