Primary Commodities Report for October 6th - 10th

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 6 – October 10 Natural Gas (Green) is the biggest mover. Natural Gas (Green) experienced a sharp increase at the midpoint of the week where it stood at 5.2% above the baseline. However, Natural Gas (Green) then declined, ending the period at ~ 6.5% below the baseline. Nickel (Red) also had sharp movement during the week. It increased during the week up until October 9th where it began to decline, ending the period ~ 0.89% below the baseline. Gold (Yellow) and Brent Oil (Black) showed a similar trend up until the end of the week where Brent Oil (Black) fell ~ 2.8% below the baseline and Gold (Yellow) increased, ending at 2.5% 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.

Similar to last week, Brent Oil (Black) continues to decline, going from a price of $64.30/barrel at the start of the month to $62.13/barrel in a span of a week and stayed below the lower bound at the end of the period. Natural Gas (Green) also declined throughout the week with a price of $3.1/MMbtu and broke the upper bound. Gold (Yellow) continues to increase and has stayed above the upper bound with a price of $3.975.90/troy oz. Nickel remains above the upper bound and while it had a minor drop during the week it was able to end the week at $15.81/share.

Additional Reading

Oil Extends Decline As US-China Trade Tensions Flare Again

The Yahoo finance article states that oil prices have continued to sink since they first began to drop in

May. An ongoing feud between China and the US has played a role in this due to tariffs being

threatened from both sides, which could result in a tariff war between the world's two largest economies

and hurt oil consumption. However, OPEC+ should relieve some of this burden, since they have a

plan in place to raise production quotes to reclaim market share during the month of October.