Commodities: Gold, precious metals get Fed-inspired boost as crude consolidates

Precious-metals futures enjoyed a hearty uptick on Thursday in the aftermath of the US Federal Reserve lifting interest rates, while Bank of England stood pat as anticipated.

At about 15:08 GMT, on Comex, gold was up 2.35% to $1228.9 an ounce, with silver up 2.79% to $17.4 an ounce and copper ahead 0.94% to 268.15 cents a pound.

Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam said the Fed's lift had been fully priced in, but there had been some dollar profit taking and nil-yielding gold had been given a boost.

"In essence, the Fed has struck a good balance and investors are clearly on board," said Erlam in a statement.

Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft, both analysts at Accendo Markets, also noted that gold had halted its recent downtrend to fetch fresh two-week highs.

"In an unusual bullish move for the non-yielding safe haven asset after a rate hike, this can be entirely attributed to the aforementioned dollar weakness," the pair said.

Further strength in gold could be attributed to the defeat of Geert Wilders in Netherlands' election last night, although the spectre of European nationalism remains to the fore with the upcoming votes in France and Italy.

SwissQuote said the safe-haven yellow metal was finding strong support at $1177, and that short-term momentum could see it approach resistance at $1263.

"In the long-term, the technical structure suggests that there is a growing upside momentum. A break of $1392 is necessary to confirm it," said SwissQuote.

Three-month industrial metals on London Metals Exchange were mostly higher. Zinc led, and was followed by aluminum and copper, while tin fell.

Meantime, Nymex-priced WTI crude was down 0.1% to $48.81 a barrel, and Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was up 0.1% to $51.86 a barrel.

Crude's gains after the Fed's rise had turned to consolidation, helped also by news of a draw-down of US inventories and Saudi Arabia's commitment to oil-market stability.

"An extension of the output deal between OPEC and non-OPEC members remains in doubt but the inventory numbers and Saudi energy ministry comments have afforded oil the opportunity to stabilise," said Erlam.

Among agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-priced corn was up 0.62% to 365.75 cents a bushel, with wheat was up 0.46% to 438 cents a bushel.

On ICE, cocoa was down 0.49% to $2038 a MT, with cotton No.2 up 0.59% to 78.54 cents a pound. Live cattle fell 0.6% to 108.9 cents a pound.