Commodities: Crude mixed as WTI promises 5-day winning streak

Crude-oil futures were mixed, albeit barely moved, with West Texas Intermediate looking hopeful to extend its winning streak to five consecutive sessions.

At 15:35 GMT, Nymex-listed WTI crude was up 0.17% to $53.39 a barrel, while Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was down 0.07% to $55.31 a barrel.

The US Energy Information Administration has reported that crude supplies rose in the week ended 16 December by 2.3m barrels to 485.4 million barrels. Analysts had expected a drawdown of 2.5 million.

OANDA senior market analyst Craig Erlam observed that even if WTI did post a five-day winning streak, context was everything.

"The advance it's made is only marginally larger than its decline the day before so we can’t get too carried away with the move," he said in a statement.

On Comex, gold was up 0.1% to $1134.7 an ounce, with silver falling 0.48% to $16.04 an ounce and copper down 0.18% to 249.80 cents a pound.

FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga said that with markets expecting higher US rates in 2017 and the US dollar set to appreciate further, gold could find itself vulnerable to heavy losses.

"As the year slowly comes to an end traders may observe how the metal reacts to the intraday $1125 support which if broken could open a path lower towards $1115," Otunuga said.

Erlam added that gold might re-test $1,150 an ounce soon.

"But, it will take a significant move to break above here given the overall strength of the dollar and hawkishness of the Fed," he added.

Three-month industrial metals on London Metals Exchange were mostly higher, although tin was down 1.32% to $20,920 a MT.

Among agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-quoted corn was down 0.29% to 349.25 cents a bushel, and wheat fell 0.12% to 402.75 cents a bushel.

ICE-listed cocoa was up 1.11% to $2281 a MT, while cotton No.2 rose 1.77% to 70.57 cents a pound. Live cattle was up 0.76% to 116.13 cents a pound.