Oil and precious metals up; most base metals lower

Oil prices were higher Monday despite the highest inventory levels in twenty years in the developed nations of the world on the expectation that high pump prices for gasoline will not keep US holiday drivers off the road over the Independence Day holiday on Tuesday. While the inventory numbers show that there is no shortage of crude oil, investors are worried about the supply of refined oil products, especially of gasoline and diesel, with stockpiles of those products in the middle of long term averages.

With the New York Mercantile Exchange closed until Wednesday for the holiday, there are no prices for West Texas Intermediate Oil available. It closed on Friday at $73.85 per barrel, just $1.50 below its record high, sent in May. August delivery Brent crude on the International Petroleum Exchange in London had gained 40 cents by late afternoon on Monday to $73.91 per barrel.

Trade was slow in the metals markets on Monday as well. Gold was up $12 to $624/$625 per troy ounce after hitting a month-long high of $625.05 during the day, having gained 15 percent in the past two weeks on talk that the central banks in China and in the United Arab Emirates are thinking about increasing their gold reserves. Silver and platinum were up as well, to $11.27 per troy ounce and $1,242 per troy ounce respectively.

In contract to precious metals, base metals were mostly down, with copper dropping $80 to $7,240 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. Aluminum was lower as well, by $30 to $2,600 per tonne. With inventories down to around 7,000 tonnes in LME warehouses, nickel bucked the trend and added $450 to $21,800 per tonne.

Discuss this in the Finance Markets forums

Story link: Oil and precious metals up; most base metals lower