Commodities: Oil futures whipsawed amid growth concerns, gold gains

Commodity traders endured another volatile session on Monday, as 'market chatter' around a possible US recession looming on the horizon percolated through the different asset classes.

Those concerns nearly sufficed to offset support for prices from figures showing another decline in the onshore US oil rig count, a dip in the US dollar and continuing news of turmoil in Venezuela.

As of 2016 GMT, front month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures for prompt month delivery were slipping by 0.10% to $58.98 a barrel on NYMEX, although Brent was managing to eke out an advance of 0.34% to $67.26 after hitting an intraday low at $66.36.

On Friday, consultancy Baker Hughes reported that the number of US oil rigs in operation had dropped by nine over the preceding seven days to reach 824.

In the background meanwhile, the US dollar spot index was off by 0.12% to 96.5310 while the Bloomberg commodity index was adding 0.20% to 81.92 and near its session highs.

Three-month LME copper futures were also whipsawed, although by the end of trading they had managed to recover some of the prior week's losses, finishing the day at $6,340 per metric tonne after having started the day off from $6,311.

June gold on COMEX was perhaps the main beneficiary of the recent volatility in global stockmarkets, as investors sought out safe havens, tacking on 0.75% to close at $1,328.60/oz..

Soft commodities were mostly higher, with CME live cattle the exception, with the May contract falling 1.92% to $1.2133/lb..