A weak time for metals last week – iron ore, copper, gold all ended lower as the US dollar had another small gain – its 4th weekly rise in a row.
Complicating matters for metals traders is the Fed meeting this week that will see the first rate rise for 2018 – that belief has helped the US dollar firm, which in turn means weakness for most commodity prices.
The key for the markets though isn’t the decision, it’s the Fed’s thinking on future rate rises with updated forecasts and a new ‘dot plot’ (which shows where Fed members think rates are headed to) to be released early Thursday morning.
In China, iron ore tumbled more than 3% on Friday, ending under $US70 a tonne after a couple of days of gains that saw it regain the $US71 level.
The price for delivery to northern China fell 3.1% or $US2.27 a tonne to end the week at $US69.84, according to the Metal Bulletin.
It was the second week in a row that iron ore prices slumped on Friday – the previous week it fell $4.2% to $US70.09 a tonne.
Friday’s close was the lowest week close so far this year and followed a sell off driven in the iron ore futures market and the return of uncertainty about the strength of Chinese steel prices and demand now that winter has ended.
The US Dollar Index was up less than 0.1% at 90.22, for a weekly of just over 0.1%. That saw the Aussie dollar lose more than one US cent to finish the week around $US77.13 against the previous Friday’s close around 78.49 US cents.
In New York gold futures fell to two week lows for the loss of around just on 1% for the week.
Comex April gold fell $US5.50, or 0.4%, to settle at $US1,312.30 an ounce in New York. It saw its lowest finish since March 1 and was down just over 0.9% for the week according to FactSet data.
Meanwhile, Comex May silver dipped 0.9% lower to settle at $US16.272 an ounce. That was a loss of nearly 2% for the week.
And another losing week for Comex copper – the May contract eased 0.6% to $US3.108 a pound, down 0.9% for the week.
In London copper on the LME was also weak. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange closed 0.5% down at $US6,888 a tonne, having hit a one-week low of $US6,852.
LME aluminium ended flat at $US2,085, zinc rose 0.8% to $US3,260, lead closed 1.2% down at $US2,383, tin dropped 0.1% to $US21,000 and nickel finished down 0.1% at $13,625.
