Primary Commodities Report for January 19th - 23rd

QU Economics Research Team
5 days ago
2 min read

By: Gabriella Acevedo, The Quinnipiac University Global Economics Research Team

Commodities Index

Source: Yahoo Finance and own calculations. Rates are in United States dollars per one (1) unit of goods. Brent Crude Oil is measured in barrels. Natural Gas is measured in MMBtu (Million British Thermal Units), Gold is per troy ounce, and for Nickel the price reflects price per share of (NIKL) ETF. They are all indexed to be at 100 at the start of the period.

For the week of January 19^th – 23rd, Natural Gas (Green) showed the largest movement. It began to increase at the start of the week and continued to rise throughout the week. It reached a high of 70% above the baseline and ended the week off with its positive trend. Nickel (Red), Brent Oil (Black), and Gold (Yellow) all followed similar trends throughout the week. Brent Oil (Black) followed a steady trend along the baseline with a slight increase to end the week at 2.72% above the baseline. Gold (Yellow) had a slow increase throughout the week and continued rising, ending the week at 8.45% above the baseline. Similarly, Nickel (Red) followed the trend of a slow increase and ended the week at 9.02% above the baseline.

Commodities Historical Trends

Natural Gas (Green) broke the lower bound this week along with the upper bound and reached a price of $5.27/MMBtu which is also the highest price Natural Gas (Green) has reached for the month. Nickel (Red) has continued to increase this week and remains above the upper bound with a price of $20.30/share like Natural Gas (Green). This is also the highest price it has reached for the month. Brent Oil (Black) broke past the upper bound this week and while it had a slight decline, it was able to rise again, finishing the week at $65.80/barrel. Gold (Yellow) continued to rise during this week remaining above the upper bound and reached a price of $4976.20/troy oz. Likewise with Nickel (Red) and Natural Gas (Green), Gold (Yellow) also reached its highest price of the month.

Additional Reading

Natural gas prices soar with massive winter storm, arctic blast set to impact almost half the country

Yahoo finance article states that with the massive winter storm hitting most of the east coast there has been a large spike in Natural gas prices as people prepare for these freezing temperatures.