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Commodities traders are awaiting clarification about the United States Federal Reserve’s monetary easing policy, causing prices to stabilize.
In light of this uncertainty, spot gold prices have remained steady over the last four weeks, holding stable at $1,385.61 an ounce on Friday morning.
“(Gold) cannot break below $1,370 and cannot break above $1,420,” Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at MKS, told Reuters. “There seems to be very good buying around the lows and good selling around the highs. The Fed meeting next week has kept a lot of people on the sidelines. We may have some moves next week after the [Federal Open Market Committee] (meeting).
Silver, similarly, has changed little throughout the week, hovering near Friday’s price of $22.04 per ounce.
Meanwhile, copper continued to a six-week low on Thursday, trading at $7,011.25 a tonne. That is copper’s weakest price since early May. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (NYSE:FCX) declared force majeure on Wednesday to exempt itself from contracts to deliver copper concentrate from its Indonesian mine, where work is still suspended after a May accident that resulted in the deaths of 28 miners.
In oil, Brent futures began slipping on Friday after the price had reached nearly $105 per barrel. Ample inventories, along with poor demand outlook, weighed on prices.
“The key driver of oil has been the weakness in the dollar rather than any fundamental factors,” Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, told Reuters. “Traders are wary about pushing things higher because they are confronted with a situation of plenty of supplies when seasonal demand is supposed to pick up.”