A steadier end to the week for commodities after Friday’s jobs report settled nerves in the US.
But the doubts about Greece’s continuing involvement in the eurozone giving traders a nervy weekend.
The greenback rose 1% against the euro Friday and 3.7% for the week.
While that contributed to the weakness in commodities, it wasn’t the major reason for the slump over the week, which was triggered by that sharp sell-off in silver a week ago in Asian trading.
While US June oil lost $US2.62, or 2.6%, to $US97.18 a barrel, gold rose
.
Comex July silver fell $2.63, or 1%, to $US35.29 an ounce.
It had traded as high as $US36.43 an ounce on Friday.
The thinly traded front-month May silver contract had its worst week since late March 1980.
May silver on Comex fell 2.63% on Friday to $US35.28 an ounce.
That took the loss last week to 27%, the same as for the more active July contract.
The week’s losses have shaved silver yearly gains to 14%.
Gold lost 4.2% on the week, as it had settled the previous Friday at a record $1,556.40 an ounce.
Another increase in Comex margins kicks in tonight which could see prices again weaken on trader liquidations.
Crude-oil futures ended a seesaw session Friday with losses on the day and the week.
Prices rose, fell, rose and then fell to take the week’s loss to nearly 15%, a rude reminder for many traders that what goes up can come down with a thump, as we saw in 2008-09.
Not even the solid jobs report could offset the underlying concerns about the US economy and Greece.
June WTI fell $US2.62, or 2.6%, to close at US$97.18 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Futures prices were down 14.7% from last week’s close of $US113.93.
Oil traded down to $US94.63 a barrel in electronic trading, and rose past $US100 before turning down to close weak.
In London it was a different story: the solid US jobs report boosted the price of Brent crude, which ended up $US1.21 a barrel to $US112.01.
It was down $US5 a barrel at one stage before rallying.
But the market ended before the Greece euro rumour broke out into the open.
For the week Brent crude lost $US13.88, or 17.6%.
Comex July copper ended 2.45c lower at $US3.9755 a pound.
That was copper’s lowest settlement since December 1, 2010.
Copper lost 4.8% this week.
An interesting quarterly report last week was from Vale, the giant Brazilian miner and the world’s largest iron-ore producer.
It revealed a record quarterly profit on Friday thanks to a doubling in sales revenue because of higher sales of metals such as nickel and copper.
First-quarter net profit rose to $US6.83 billion from $US1.6 billion in the March quarter.
Net sales climbed to $US13.2 billion.
Higher sales and prices of nickel and copper helped offset steady iron ore volumes that were hit by bad weather in January in Brazil and coal exports from Australia at the same time.
Vale said copper and nickel sales rose 71% and 67% respectively thanks to prices which rose by a third in the quarter.
Vale also had a profit of $US1.5 billion in the quarter after it sold its bauxite and alumina assets to Norwegian aluminium producer Norsk Hydro ASA in February.
That should mean BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto had solid March quarters as well.
But they don’t report on a quarterly basis.
