Primary Commodities Report for October 13th - 17th

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.

During the week of October 13 – October 17 Natural Gas (Green) shows the most movement. Natural Gas (Green) continued to decline throughout the week, hitting a low of ~5.4% below the baseline and then began to increase, ending the week at ~3.1% below the baseline.  Gold (Yellow) Increased steadily during the week hitting its peak on October 16^th of 7.6% above the baseline and ended the week at 5.4% above the baseline. Nickle (Red) and Brent Oil (Black) followed a similar trend throughout the week. Brent Oil declined for the week where it ended at ~2.3%. Nickel (Red) also fell during the week ending at 0.79% 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.

Natural Gas (Green) continued to fall this week and broke the lower bound with a price of $2.96 /MMBtu for the week. Brent Oil (Black) has also continued to decline following a trend like the past weeks and stayed below the lower bound ending the week at $61.10/barrel. Gold (Yellow) continues to increase and has stayed above the upper bound with a price of $4354.70 troy. Oz. Nickle (Red) remains above the upper bound however, has had a slight drop during this week ending the week at $15.39/share.

Additional Reading

Gold Hits Record High As Trump's Tariff Threats Send Investors Racing To Safety—And One Currency Is Reaping The Rewards

The Yahoo finance article states that gold prices have hit high records. This appears to be a direct effect of Trumps Tariffs inducing fear in investors, who are now going to the safest option which they believe is gold.