Copper, along with several of the other principal base metals fell sharply this week as a resurgent US dollar drove many commodities lower, with both gold and silver also selling off strongly. For the base metals market it was Nickel which saw the most dramatic price moves, falling over 5.5% with copper and zinc both falling over 2 %, with tin one of the few commodities closing higher.
Whilst fundamentals and weather play a huge role in driving the price action for natural gas, the technical picture is now increasingly taking center stage as we move into the warmer months of the year and the commodity responds accordingly.
Market focus this morning returns to the more mundane, namely the BOE inflation report and press conference with Gov Mark Carney, and it will be interesting to see whether Cable can continue to build on its recent platform of support in the 1.5 region.
Regular readers of my market analysis will know that I have been bearish on gold for some time, and despite the recent bullish trend which has seen gold move from the lows of $1170 per ounce to the high of late January at $1310 per ounce, have remained so.
For speculative traders, the last few weeks have offered wonderful trading opportunities across all markets, and provided you have no directional bias, the opportunities are there in abundance.
As we come to the end of 2014 and look forward to 2015, for those trading and investing in gold the perspectives and conclusions will no doubt be very different and entirely dependent on whether you are a longer term investor in the precious metal, or a short term speculator.
As we come to the end of another trading year, very few traders would have believed oil would be centre stage along with the US dollar, and as the star of the currency of first reserve continues to shine brightly, that of crude oil continues to flicker and fade as OPEC maintains its policy of taking on the alternative energy providers head on.
Difficult to believe that until recently the US dollar (UUP, quote) was being written off by all and sundry, with some even suggesting that its days as the currency of first reserve were numbered. Many were calling for the Yuan to replace it, and even the euro in its current iteration. Others suggested a basket of currencies. How times have changed.
Last week was an interesting one for oil traders, with the rally of Monday promising much, only for this move to be snuffed out during the remainder of the week, as the WTI Light Sweet Crude (USO, quote) contract for January closed close to the open at $65.84 per barrel.
As the currency markets pause ahead of the monthly Non Farm Payroll release due later, I thought it would be a good time to revisit the weekly futures charts for some of the major currency pairs, and to step back a little, following a week of significant news items around the world. This helps to contextualize the NFP data, which whilst important, is simply another release in the economic calendar.
