Primary Commodities Report for October 20th - 24th

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 20^th – October 24^th Natural Gas (Green) showed the most movement. Natural Gas (Green) rose throughout the week, hitting a high of 15.5% above the baseline on October 21^st. However, it began to decline after ending the week at 9.84% above the baseline. Brent Oil (Black) stayed steady throughout the week until the 21^st when it began to rise, ending the week at 7.5% above the baseline. Nickle (Red) and Gold (Gold) followed a similar pattern during the week. Gold (Yellow) declined through the week, however slightly rose at the end of the week, ending at ~1.7% below the baseline. Nickle (Red) also declined through the week ending at ~3.5% below 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) rose significantly this week. Rising above the baseline and breaking the upper bound with a price of $3.28/ MMBtu. Similarly, Brent Oil (Black) also rose during this week, rising above the lower bound with a price of $65.8/barrel. Gold (Yellow) fell during the week, however had a slight incline to end the week at $4117.5 troy. Oz. Nickle (Red) declined throughout the week, falling below the upper bound at a price of $15/share.

Additional Reading

3 Natural Gas Stocks to Gain From Rising Clean Energy Demand

The Yahoo finance articles dive into how climate change is on the rise and society is beginning to demand cleaner fuel. This has began to boost demand for Natural Gas due to the number of data centers requiring large amounts of natural gas-driven electricity.