Commodities: Gold limps back in European trading, metals market mixed

Gold made a slow recovery back to positive territory in Europe on Thursday, after ten successive sessions of declines, while oil benchmarks retreated further and industrial metals continued to send mixed signals.

At 1449 BST, COMEX gold for August delivery was up 0.39% or $4.30 at $1,095.80 an ounce, halting ten sessions of declines in the US. Spot gold was up 0.26% or $2.82 at $1,097.06, while spot platinum was up 0.56% or $5.45 at $984.75 an ounce. Concurrently, COMEX silver for September delivery was broadly flat at $14.75 an ounce.

Meanwhile, the industrial metals market remained mixed. Past the midway point in trading on the London Metal Exchange, three-month contracts of primary aluminium (down 0.3%), lead (down 0.3%) and nickel (down 2.1%) were all trading lower.

Copper came into sharp focus as Goldman Sachs analysts lowered their price forecasts for the industrial metal in 2015, 2016 and 2017 to $5,670, $4,725 and $4,500 per metric tonne, from $5,724, $5825 and $7,000 previously. Subsequently, the LME copper contract was trading down 0.4% or $19 at $5350.25 per metric tonne.

Elsewhere, oil benchmarks recovered from lows in Asia, after US crude stockpiles unexpectedly rose by 2.5m barrels last week, according to the country’s Energy Information Administration data published overnight. Analysts were expecting a drop of 2.3m barrels instead of the rise in holdings that ultimately emerged, entrenching oversupply concerns.

The WTI fell below $50 on the news, before marginally recovering to trade at $49.43 a barrel, down 0.49% or 24 cents. Concurrently, Brent was trading up 17 cents or 0.30% at $56.30 a barrel.

Finally, on the agricultural commodities front, CBOT corn (down 0.24%), ICE cocoa (down 0.49%) and CME live cattle (down 0.02%) were trading lower, while CBOT wheat (down 1.40%) and cotton (down 0.56%) were up.