Commodities: Copper and Brent edge higher as traders wait on Fedspeak, US-China trade

Commodity futures were little changed at the start of the week as traders paused ahead of a key speech from the US central bank head on Wednesday that might help to clear up some of the uncertainty around expectations for rate cuts by the Federal Reserve over the remainder of 2019.

They were also expectant ahead of any hints around the telephone contacts scheduled between US and Chinese trade officials for over the week ahead.

Related to the outlook for the latter, on Friday economists at Barclays told clients: "Despite the positive G20 truce, we think trade uncertainties will remain elevated, as evidenced by new reports of the tech supply change being moved out of China

"The truce suggests a reduced probability of near-term escalation, but does not necessarily raise the likelihood of a near-term deal leading to de-escalation."

With that in mind, September copper on COMEX was 0.06% higher to $2.6625 a pound and the September-dated Brent contract was rising by 0.39% to $64.48 a barrel on the ICE.

Gasoline, natural gas and heating oil futures for next month delivery on NYMEX however were all moving lower.

August gold on COMEX was also unloved, despite threat from Iran at the weekend to ramp-up its uranium enrichment activities further still.

The US dollar spot index meanwhile was only marginally higher, adding 0.07% to 97.3520, while the Bloomberg commodity index was slipping by 0.09% to 79.04.

Soft commodities were all also moving lower, except for ICE traded cocoa, which was trading 4.63% higher to $2,577 per metric tonne.