Commodities: Dissatisfied traders sell crude on rise in US inventories

Crude-oil futures are rising Friday as traders continue to express dissatisfaction at yet another rise in US inventories amid a long-running global glut of the black liquid.

At roughly 15:39, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate was down 0.57% to $54.14 a barrel, while Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was down 0.8% to $56.13 a barrel.

"Crude-oil prices reacted unfavourably to news of yet another US inventories build," said Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft at Accendo Markets.

This was despite the actual figure coming in significantly lower than expected, they said, noting all eyes were now on Friday evening's Baker Hughes Rig Count.

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, observed that crude prices continued to struggle near their recent range highs.

"While OPEC cuts came in at an 86% compliance new data appears to show that rising US exports are filling the gap," he added in a statement.

Meanwhile, on Comex, gold was up 0.5% to $1257.7 an ounce, while silver firmed 1.18% to $18.4 an ounce and copper rose 1.22% to 269.15 cents a pound.

Lukman Otunuga, research analyst at FXTM, said the yellow metal's rise had come on its safe-haven appeal given heightened political risks in the US and Europe.

"This metal remains firmly tilted to the upside on the daily charts and the rapidly fading expectations of a US interest rate increase in March has inspired bullish investors to propel prices higher," said Otunuga.

He opined that further dollar weakness -- the dollar-spot index was marginally lower friday afternoon -- could fuel the upside momentum towards $1260, albeit potentially capped by the prospect of a Fed rate rise later in 2017.

Van Dulken and Croft added the bullish flag pattern that could take gold up to $1280 was the precious metal’s price to $1280 was still very much alive.

Adding to these factors, Hewson said that it appeared the receding prospects of an imminent large-scale fiscal stimulus after comments from US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Thursday might have prompted some short-term dollar weakness.

On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were heavily lower. Zinc, tin and copper were all down 2.6%-3.0%, with aluminum lower 0.93%.

Among agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-priced corn was down 0.27% to 371.5 cents a bushel, with wheat off 1.27% to 447.75 cents a bushel.

ICE-quoted cocoa lost 1.04% to $2005 a MT, while cotton No.2 rose 1.04% to 76.89 cents a pound. Live cattle retreated 0.21% to 116.28 cents a pound.