Another mixed session for commodities

It’s been another mixed session for commodities.

Energy: oil saw decent upside trading higher by over 1% while natgas was down by about the same percentage.

Precious metals: saw gold and silver put in a decent bounce while platinum trades lower by over 2%.

It’s been a challenge getting a solid read on commodities in the past few weeks, with a lot of drivers in the mix but also conflicting ones at the same time.

Copper and oil is a good example, where both have constructive supply outlooks, as well as a question mark about demand with the recent US and China data. However, between these two it would seem that only copper is reflecting a concern for demand, while oil hasn’t paid much attention to that with it’s recent rally.

Gold is another one that’s been challenging to pin down on the fundamental side. We saw a solid bounce from key support around 2300 yesterday, but I have very low conviction in the sustainability of either upside or downside.

For gold it’s also worth keeping positioning in mind with very stretched long positioning at the moment. This of course doesn’t mean price will push lower, but it does make the risk to reward of chasing higher a bit unattractive.

This article was written by Arno V Venter at www.forexlive.com.