Overnight Metal Carnage

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By Greg Peel

It’s never obvious as to who is leading who in commodities markets, but suffice to say reports of higher copper inventories and a 2.7% fall in the oil price overnight were likely included factors that triggered a general metal sell off.

At the end of afternoon session in New York, aluminium was down 3%, copper 4%, nickel 2% and zinc 4%.

Nymex WTI fell US$1.50 to US$53.92/bbl.

The gold price managed to hold up, settling at US$642.60/oz, as the currency markets went into hold ahead of tonight’s Fed meeting and Wednesday night’s monetary policy announcement. While no one expects rates to move, everyone is interested to hear what the Fed has to say.

The stock markets were similarly quiet.

Resources and oil stocks should come under a fair bit of pressure on the local bourse today, although this was not really reflected in the SPI Overnight which closed down only 6 points to 5730.

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