Primary Commodities Report for November 10th - 14th

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.

All four commodities have shown large movement during the week of November 10^th –14^th. Starting with Nickle (Red) it gradually rose throughout the week with a high of 8.8% above the baseline. However, it had a slight decline shortly after ending the week at 6.1% above the baseline. Gold (Yellow) follows a similar pattern with a high of 5.1% above the baseline and then fell at a slower rate, ending the week at 4.6% above the baseline. Brent Oil (Black) began the week increasing but midway through the week it began to decline, hitting a low of ~1.4% below the baseline. It had a steady increase pace to then end the week at 1.2% above the baseline. Natural Gas (Green) started the week with a steady increasing pace with some drops during the week. It hit its high of 7.6% above the base line before a slight decline that caused the result to be 5.8% above the baseline.

Commodities Historical Trends

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. 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.

During this week Nickle (Red) showed improvement. It suppressed the baseline and continued to stay above it, ending the week with a price of $14.22/ share. Gold (Yellow) was able to break the upper bound while it had a drop at the end of the week. It remained above the upper bound with a price of $4087.60/Troy Oz. Brent Oil (Black) remains below the baseline but above the lower bound. It had some dips during the week but ended with a price of $64.39/barrel. Natural Gas (Green) continues to increase and remains above the upper bound with a price of $4.50/MMBtu.

Additional Reading

Gold price today, Friday, November 14: Gold hangs around $4,200 amid unclear rate outlook

The Yahoo Finance article states that Gold continues to have a higher demand due to central banks and investors seeking safety. The government shutdown played a factor in this due to some reports remaining unpublished which left analysts in the dark about what the Fed’s next move may be.