Primary Commodities Report for March 18 – 22

By: Apoorva Kuppa, The Quinnipiac University 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 and Natural Gas are measured in barrels, Gold is per ounce, and the ETF is per share. They are all indexed to be at 100 at the start of the period.  

For the week of March 18th to 22nd, the prices of Brent Crude Oil, Gold, Natural Gas, and Nickel finished relatively the same. The price of Brent Crude Oil (black) experienced an increase of 0.1%. Gold (yellow) had an even smaller price change, only increasing by 0.03% by the end of the week. The price of Natural Gas (green) spiked mid-week by 5.3% and steadily fell to end the week with a 0.24% increase. Lastly, the price of Nickel (red) is the only one among these four commodities whose price fell, finishing the week with a 0.63% decrease.

Commodities Historical Trends 

Source: Yahoo Finance and own calculations. Rates are in United States dollars per one (1) unit of goods. Brent Crude Oil and Natural Gas are measured in barrels, Gold is per ounce, and the ETF is per share. The center line is a rolling three-month average. The upper and lower boundaries are the average plus and average minus one standard deviation, respectively, for the same three-month period. 

Over the past three months, the prices of natural gas and nickel have consistently trended downward. While natural gas has dipped below one standard deviation and lingered there, nickel has slowly been increasing and fluctuating between the lower and upper bounds. On the other hand, Brent crude oil and gold have been upward trending during the same period. Both have recently been sitting well above one standard deviation, and we will be watching to see whether the price increases will be sustained.

Additional Reading

Gold prices have been hitting record highs — here’s why the rally is far from over