Commodities: Traders display caution ahead of Yellen speech

The market was little changed overall, with traders displaying caution ahead of the next day´s much-awaited speech from US Fed chair Janet Yellen, given the potential for sharp moves in prices depending on her remarks.

Nonetheless, certain specific contracts in each corner of the commodity space did see some notable price moves.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil for one bounced back from the previous day´s losses, tacking on 1.183% to $47.33 per barrel on the ICE.

Similarly, but going in the opposite direction, three-month LME-traded nickel futures gave back some of their recent gains, retreating 2.6% to close at $9,875.00 per metric tonne.

In parallel, three-month copper futures dipped 0.6% to end at $4,627.00 per tonne, alongside marginal losses for the similarly-dated zinc and tin futures.

Out in the agricultural space, white sugar futures on Euronext LIFFE jumped 1.7% to $539.10 per metric tonne. ICE-traded cocoa futures also did well, rising 1.4% to $3,058 a tonne.

December 2016 corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade fell 1.26% to $3.32 per bushel.

The Bloomberg commodity index was nearly unchanged, drifting lower by 0.02% to 85.05 as the spot US dollar index gave back 0.03% to 94.75 despite somewhat hawkish remarks from two high-ranking Fed officials on Thursday.