Commodities: Oil and precious metals under the cosh

Oil prices fell on Wednesday after data from an industry body showed a bigger-than-forecast increase in US crude inventories, adding to worries of an oversupply in the sector.

The US Energy Information Administration said commercial crude inventories rose by eight million barrels last week to 476.6m barrels, soaring above expectations for an extra 3.9m barrels.

It follows Tuesday's report from the American Petroleum Institute which revealed crude stockpiles had risen seven million barrels last week, more than the 3.7m barrels that was expected by analysts.

Brent crude futures decreased 1.7% to $47.85 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate dipped 2.4% to $45.20 per barrel at 1520 BST.

“The repeated signs of an aggressive oversupply of oil in the markets is going to remain a dominant threat to investor sentiment, and I also believe the weak sentiment over the global economy could lead to reduced demand for the commodity,” said Jameel Ahmad, chief market analyst at FXTM.

Meanwhile, a stronger dollar and a lack of positive drivers in the market dragged precious metal prices lower.

On the Comex gold fell 0.39% and silver dropped 1.17% while spot platinum declined 1.69% as an absence of economic data and confusion over US interest rates did little to lift the market.

Base metals were mixed on the London Metal Exchange’s three-month futures including copper (0%), lead (-1%), tin (+0.2%), zinc (-2.3%), nickel (+0.3) and primary aluminium (-0.08%).

On the agricultural front there were ups and downs: CBOT corn (+0.60%), wheat (+0.81%), ICE cocoa (-1.28%), cotton (+0.88%) and live cattle (-0.31%).