Oil did well in April, gold didn’t, iron ore was almost flat, aluminium hung onto most of its gains, markets with a strong mining influence such as London and the ASX did better than Wall Street.
Brent crude oil topped the $US75 a barrel level, the highest level for more than four years. It was a similar story for West Texas Intermediate crude, the US benchmark.
The surging oil price came despite a rise in US oil rig use and production and has helped drive petrol prices in Australia to four year highs this week around $1.54 a litre in Sydney yesterday.
The strength in oil (and many other commodities such as copper and silver, but not gold) came as the US dollar, which had its best month since Donald Trump’s election in 2016.
April also saw the rise in US Treasury yields as investors accepted the idea the Federal Reserve will deliver at least three interest rate rises this year. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury crossed above 3% for the first time since January 2014 and closed at 2.955% on Monday, around where they started the month.
The Aussie dollar fell to around 75.3 US cents early Tuesday, down 2.2% on the month and nearly 3.5% for the year so far.
With China on holiday for Monday and today, iron ore ended the month at last Friday’s price. The Metal Bulletin index price fell 60 US cents on Friday to end at $US65.68 per tonne cfr Qingdao.
That was up 69 cents from the close at the end of March 9according to the Metal Bulletin of $US64.99 a tonne.
That still left it down from $US72.61 a tonne at the end of 2017 (a fall of around 10%) and down more than 17% from $US78.61 at the end of February.
On Wall Street, the Dow fell 148 points, or 0.6%, to 24,163.15. The S&P 500 fell 21.86 points, or 0.8%, to 2,648, while the Nasdaq lost 53.5 points, or 0.8%, to 7,066.
For the month, the Dow rose 0.3%,trimming its year-to-date loss to 2.3%. The S&P rose 0.3% in April; but is down 1% in so far this year and the Nasdaq rose less than 0.1% on the month, to be up 2.4% for the year so far.
Back home, the ASX 200 looks like starting May with a small loss with the overnight futures market down 18 points off the back of Wall Street’s slide. The ASX 200 closed at 5,972.7 on Monday, up 29.1 points or 0.5%, led by the banks.
The ASX 200 rose 3.8% in April, but is still off 1.36% so far this year.
In Europe, the Stoxx Europe index rose 0.2% on Monday to end at 385.32, rising for the third session in a row.
For the month, the index notched up a solid gain of 3.9%, it is best monthly return since December 2016, cutting its year-to-date drop to 1%.
In London the UK.’s FTSE 100 index rose 0.1% to finish at 7,509.30. The FTSE logged its best monthly climb, up 6.4%, since July of 2013, thanks to the strong presence of mining stocks.
Germany’s DAX 30 index was up 0.3% to close at 12,612.11, with a monthly advance of 4.3%, its best month since last September.
Meanwhile, France’s CAC 40 index added 0.7% to end at 5,520.50, jumping 6.8% in April, for the best month since October of 2015.
In commodities Comex June gold fell $4.20, or 0.3%, at $US1,319.20 an ounce, to be down 0.6% for the month.
Comex July silver lost 9.6 cents, or 0.6%, to $US16.401 an ounce.
Silver futures gained 0.8% for the month.
July copper rose or 0.2% on Comex, ending at $US3.0740 a pound, 1.6% higher for April. LME three month aluminium ended uo around 12.4% for the month, but was up double that at one stage.
But oil stood out. June West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures added 47 cents, or 0.7%, to $US68.47 a barrel in New York.
The WTI contract was up 5.6% in April, based on the most-active contract, which was its second straight monthly advance.
In Europe June Brent rose 53 cents, or 0.7%, to $US75.17 a barrel, a new 52-week high and its highest level since November 26, 2014 (According to FactSet).
The contract finished the month up about 7%, its largest monthly climb since last September.
July Brent which will become the front-month contract from May 1, rose 90 cents, or 1.2%, to $US74.69 a barrel. That contract was up 7.7% in April.
