Oil up, gold down, or was it the other way round?
It was a very confusing week of trading in commodities – which mostly weakened, but with occasions upticks.
Fed chair Janet Yellen provided some temporary clarity of the timing of that much talked about interest rate rise on Thursday which improved the tone for some markets on Friday.
But like other markets, commodities will get another testing this week (copper took a whacking last week) from the latest update on Chinese manufacturing and then the September jobs data from the US on Friday night.
US oil futures rose Friday, adding to the week’s overall gain, as those comments from Ms Yellen helped provide a boost to the outlook for crude demand.
Prices also got added help from data another fall in the number of active rigs drilling for oil in the US.
In fact the fall was the 4th weekly drop in a row as the number of active US oil-drilling rigs fell by four to 640 as of Friday.
Overall, the total active US rig count, including gas rigs, was at 838, also down four rigs.
Compared to last year, the total rig count has fallen by 1,093, with the oil rig count down 952, according to the survey from oil services group, Baker Hughes.
As a result November West Texas Intermediate crude futures settled at $US45.70 a barrel on Friday, up 79 cents, or 1.8%. Prices were up 2.3% on the week.
In London November Brent crude settled 43 cents, or 1%, higher at $US48.60, up more than 2% for the week.
Meanwhile Comex gold futures took a hit on Friday, losing ground after Ms Yellen comments the day before that she expects an interest-rate hike in 2015.
But prices ended up in the wake of a rally on Thursday that pushed prices to a five-week high.
December gold fell $US8.20, or 0.7%, to $1,145.60 an ounce on Comex, for a weekly gain of 0.7%.
Comex December silver lost 2 cents, or 0.1%, to $US15.11 an ounce, down 0.3% on the week.
But the centre of attention was copper which lost more ground on Friday after the sell off earlier in the week saw commodity stocks whacked as well.
Comex December copper dropped 1.9 cents, or 0.8%, to $US2.284 a pound, for a 4.3% loss over the week.
