The commodity rebound continued on Friday, concentrated in metals and energy, and helped push the Aussie dollar back above 74 US cents and on the way to 75 cents.
Last week saw metals like copper, zinc, nickel, gold and tin hit their highest levels for months.
Iron ore is up more than 20% so far this year to over $US50 a tonne.
Oil rose more than 10% last week in the US and gold and sliver hit new year plus highs.
In London trading on Friday night shares in BHP Billiton surged 9.1%, Rio Tinto was up 5.8%, Glencore gained 11.9%, Anglo American 11.1% and Antofagasta (a copper company) rose 7.7%.
That was after BHP shares surged more than 13% last week and Rio shares jumped over 12%.
But the outlook for rural commodities is weak, with US forecasts this week of weak prices to come for much of 2016.
The Australian dollar rose to a more than seven-month high versus the greenback overnight Friday, ending trading at 74.40 US cents, up 1.2% for the day and, the highest level since mid-July.
It had earlier touched 74.43 US cents. The currency last traded at 75 US cents or higher in early July.
Gold jumped 3.1% last week and had its strongest start to the year ever.
US statistics group FactSet says that according to its database, which goes back to 1984, Comex gold futures are up 19.8% from the start of the year to last Friday’s close.
Comex gold closed up $US12.50 an ounce on Friday night in New York at just over $US1,270 an ounce.
The next best performance was a 15.3% rise at the start of 2007 as the GFC was gathering pace.
Copper prices rose through $US5,000 a tonne in London on Friday night for the first time since November as investors continued to regain their optimism.
LME copper surged 3.5% to close at $US5027 a tonne after touching $US5,059, the highest level since November 5. It jumped almost 7% on the lME last week, its biggest rise since December 2011.
In New York Comex copper also had a very strong week. May copper jumped 6.6% or 3% to end at $US2.2745 a pound, trading about 7% higher for the week and up from the most recent low of $US1.94 a tonne in January.
Three-month LME zinc rose 0.8% to end at a five-month high of $US1857 a tonne, and three month nickel jumped 3.8% to finish at $US9340 a tonne, the best since November 17.
In New York, Comex silver also surged, with the May futures contract climbing 54.8 cents, or 3.6%, to close at $US15.694 an ounce. Silver rose 6% last week.
Oil prices continued to rally and traders now believe the price has steadied.
Since hitting a 12-year low near $US27 a barrel in January, Brent crude oil, has surged by more than a third to near $US37 a barrel, even as it remains well below the $US100 level it traded at until mid 2014.
That in turn has helped the share prices of major oil groups such BP, ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron to jump by between 10% and 30% since late January.
In New York, April West Texas Intermediate crude futures rose $US1.35, or 3.9%, to close at $35.92 a barrel – the highest finish since January 5. For the week, WTI rose 10%.
In London, May Brent crude futures added $US1.65, or 4.5%, to finish at US$38.72 a barrel, the highest finish since December 10 and a weekly rise of 9.3%.
Helping sentiment was another fall in the number of drilling rigs in use last week in the US. The number of rigs drilling for oil fell by 8 to 392, the first time the total has dropped under 400 since 2009.
The 70% drop in oil prices since mid-2014 has cut the number of rigs by more than half. In the same week a year ago 922 oil rigs were operating.
US domestic oil production fell 2.6% in the week ending February 26, compared with a year earlier.
But its not all bullish news for commodities. Over production and warm weather saw US natural gas prices drop to $US1.61 per million British thermal units on Friday – the lowest since 1995 and a loss of 7% over last week.
And the US Department of Agriculture last week forecast lower prices for wheat, corn, soyabeans and cotton in the coming year, blaming high stocks and increased exports from Brazil and Ukraine.
That will also be bad news for Australian rural exporters, as the rising Aussie dollar will also cut prices for local farmers.
