Commodities: Weaker dollar aids gold and silver buyers

A worse than expected Philly Fed index reading dealt a further blow to US dollar strength today, which has seen gradual weakness since the start of the year as measured by the dollar index (a broad measure of us dollar strength/weakness measured against a basket of currencies) which has seen a fall from 103.210 in January to 94.121 today (1700 BST).

The manufacturing index missed expectations, with a print of 19.5 versus 23.4 and much lower than last month's reading of 27.6.

This most recent bout of weakness appeared to give gold a slight push higher today taking the precious metal from a daily low of 1235.49 to the day high of 1247.81 by 1600 BST.

Unemployment claims came in above expectations at 233,000 versus a forecast of 245,000, but this mixed bag of data did little to support claims of the US coming closer to raising rates. As a result, the safe haven investment continues to benefit.

Silver also managed to benefit from the relative dollar weakness, rallying from a daily low of $16.15 to daily high of $16.43 by 1500 BST and comfortably trading at $16.39 by 1800 BST.

Early European trading saw Brent crude continue it's run from yesterday on the back of the inventories release, taking the black gold to a daily high of $50.32 as at 1400 BST. Sellers soon took control however forcing it back down where it was trading at $49.55 by 1800 BST.

Capital Economics have stated several key risks facing the oil market recently which include possible reductions in production in Nigeria and Libya, rising tensions in Venezuela and general escalations in geopolitical risks around the world.

Low trading volume in the base metals arena saw little movement for copper where it was trading in a comfortable $5,964/$5,997 range for much of the day.