Commodity update 69
Brent recovers from the weak beginning this week - Gold fluctuates around 1,200 USD - Palladium: Strongest drop since April 2013
On Monday, the Brent oil price quoted at 55 US-Dollar. On Friday 3 February 2017, the Brent oil price came back and reached a level of round about 56.75 US-Dollar. Some signals for a rising US-oil production – especially the amount of active oil drill holes, which rose the twelfth time in a row (556 overall) – led to a higher pressure to sell. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) the US oil production will reach a level of 500.000 barrel per day this year. This may be a problem for the OPEC to lower their oil production to 1.2 million barrel per day.
Gold quoted under 1,200 US-Dollar per troy ounce at the beginning of the week, but recovered to round about 1,210 US-Dollar per troy ounce on Friday 3 February 2017. According to Thomson Reuters GFMS, the physical demand of gold decreased by 20 percent to 3,349 tons – a seven-year-low.
Palladium is mostly used for catalytic converters. In the midweek, palladium dropped by round about seven percent to 730 US-Dollar per troy ounce. This was the strongest drop since April 2013. In the week before 17 January, investors seemed to be more optimistic with - according to CFTC-statistics - higher net-long-positions.