Commodities: Crude futures bounce back despite higher Iran output

Commodities as a whole were little changed at the start of the week even as the greenback rose to its strongest level since November 2015 on the back of rising bond yields in the US.

As of 1905 GMT, the US dollar index was higher by 0.79% to 100.00 while the Bloomberg commodity index was off by just 0.01% to 82.37.

Helping matters, energy futures reversed their losses in early afternoon trading in the Stateside, with front month West Texas Intermediate gaining 0.60% to $43.67 per barrel on the ICE and NYMEX natural gas futures jumping 4.93% to stand at $2.75/MMBtu.

December 2016 RBOB Gasoline futures on NYMEX were the weakest corner of the energy patch, giving back 1.43% to $1.2866 a gallon.

Weighing on crude prices, reports over the weekend indicated that Iran had ramped up production from fields at West Karoun to roughly 250,000 barrels a day one month ahead of schedule.

Among precious metals traded on COMEX, December 2016 silver futures were skidding 3.18% to $16.83 an ounce, while spot platinum was down 1.31% to $932.75 an ounce.

Agricultural commodities were putting in a mixed performance on Monday, with March 2017 CBoT corn futures losing 1.07% to $3.4525 per bushel and the similarly-dated cocoa contract on the ICE retreating 2.14% to $2,418 a metric tonne.

CME live cattle futures were nudging higher by 0.26% to $1.0658 a pound.