Commodities: Base metals find slight bid

Commodities found a slight bid at the start of the week, centred on base metals and agriculture futures.

From a bird's eye view, as of 1840 GMT the US dollar spot index was edging lower by 0.06% to 90.521, having hit an intraday low at 90.362, alongside a 0.23% rise on the Bloomberg commodity index to 88.74.

All the main base metals contracts on the LME were higher on Monday, with copper futures finishing at $7.068 per metric tonne versus an opening level of $7,049 a tonne.

In soft commodities, both wheat and live cattle were wanted, with March 2018 CBoT wheat tacking on 0.89% to $4.2650 a bushel while April CME live cattle gained 0.86% to $1.2378 a pound.

Energy futures were little changed overall, although February natural gas on NYMEX was bouncing back by 1.70% to $3.24/MMBtu.

Among precious metals, spot platinum was the weakest segment of the market, erasing 1.81% to $994.82/oz..