Commodities: Soros bails out of Barrick Gold

Commodities were generally higher as the greenback lost ground despite supportive comments from Fed officials on Tuesday, amid news that Soros’s investment vehicle had dumped its stake in Barrick Gold and that Chinese trading volumes had plummeted.

The US dollar spot index was down by 0.88% to 94.77 as of 19:18 BST as the Bloomberg commodity index rose 0.44% to 172.84.

In parallel, front month Brent crude futures on the ICE were up by 1.286% to $48.98 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate higher by another 1.42% to $46.40.

Also benefitting from weakness in the dollar were COMEX-traded gold futures, with the December 2016 contract tacking on 0.54% to $1,354.90/oz..

Of interest, SEC filings on 15 August revealed that Soros Fund Management had its holdings in Barrick Gold by 94% since acquiring $236.7m in shares of the world’s biggest miner of the yellow metal in the first quarter of 2016.

Three-month copper futures advanced 0.5% to $4,797.00 per metric tonne by the close of trading on the LME as of 16:35 BST.

Similarly-dated zinc futures were up 0.3% to $2,254 per metric tonne.

Nickel futures however finished the session with losses of 1.0% to $10,312.50 a tonne.

Iron ore 62% Fe futures on Globex were rising $1.80 to $59.47 a tonne.

To take note of, aggregate trading volumes across China’s three biggest commodities exchanges had fallen to their lowest level in six months after the country’s regulator imposed curbs on speculator and economic data turned down, Bloomberg reported.

Cocoa futures on Euronext Liffe gained 0.7% to £2,485 per tonne but Robusta coffee futures lost 1.3% to $1,777.0 per tonne alongside a retreat of 0.7% in Rapeseed futures to €373.25 per tonne.