Commodities: Oil prices waver after week of losses

Oil prices on Friday wavered following a week of heavy losses amid signs of a global supply glut.

At 1540 BST West Texas Immediate crude rose 0.08% to $46.42 per barrel while Brent crude was down slightly by 0.42% to $49.52 per barrel after rising above the $50 level earlier in the session.

The sector was under pressure after the International Energy Agency predicted the market would remain oversupplied through 2016.

Russia and OPEC will meet over the weekend to discuss oil price bands and a possible production cut to address the slump in the market.

Meanwhile, gold snapped a week of gains on the Comex (-0.45%) as the dollar rose.

“The deteriorating prospect for a Fed rate hike this year has triggered the leg-up in gold prices but the higher core US inflation and the rally in stocks is causing a pause for breath,” said Jasper Lawler, analyst at CMC Markets, adding that China’s GDP report next week is a “distinct risk-factor so investors will be peeling off positions going into the weekend”.

Other precious metals were mixed with silver down 0.46% on the Comex and spot platinum up 0.94%.

Base metals were mostly lower with the LME three-month futures contract on copper (-1.3%), nikel (-0.8%), tin (-1.0%) and zinc (-1.2%) in the red but lead rose (+0.5%).

On the agricultural front, commodities headed south including CBOT corn (-0.33%), wheat (-1.74%), ICE cocoa (-0.26%), cotton (-0.14%) and CME live cattle (-0.07%).