Commodities: Dollar strength, EM woes weigh on gold and copper futures
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Tuesday 04 Sep 2018
(Sharecast News) - US dollar strength acted as a headwind for commodities on Tuesday, especially base metals.
As of 1911 BST, the Bloomberg commodity index was trading lower by 0.30% at 83.48, as the US dollar spot index climbed 0.33% to 95.4520.
To take note of, emerging market currencies such as the Argentine peso or Turkish lira were trading slightly on the back foot, although after the market close in London they had come off their worst levels of the day.
Commenting on the price action in markets, traders at Sucden Financial said: "The risk button was back in the 'off' position today as emerging market currencies and stocks came under renewed pressure. With few investor havens available, and trade concerns still in sharp focus, there was a general flight to the USD which made steady upside progress."
With those drivers in place, three-month LME copper futures retreated from $5,952 per tonne at the start of trading, skidding down to $5,815 per tonne.
Precious metals also lost some of their lustre, with December gold on COMEX down by 0.72% to $1,198.0/oz..
West Texas Intermediate on the other hand was heading higher, with the contract for prompt month delivery rising 0.30% to $70.01 a barrel on the NYMEX.
In the background meanwhile, expectations were for Tropical Storm Gordon to turn into a hurricane as it headed towards the Gulf coast.
Agriculture futures meanwhile were mostly higher outside of wheat, with that December CBoT contract down by 2.75% to $5.3050 a bushel.
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