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Commodities: WTI moves back towards 52-week highs

Commodities saw nearly across-the-board gains on Wednesday, amid a large drop in the US dollar in the wake of the US central bank's policy announcement.


As of 1941 GMT, the US dollar spot index was retreating 0.67% to 89.766, alongside a 0.79% jump in the Bloomberg Commodity Index to 87.41.

Energy was the strongest corner of the market, with West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures climbing 2.97% to $65.43 per barrel on the NYMEX, to stand just shy of its 52-week high of $66.02.

Stoking buying interest in WTI were the latest weekly crude oil inventory figures out in the States.

According to the Energy Information Administration, the US Department of Energy's statistical arm, crude oil stockpiles in the US fell by 2.6m barrels during the week ending on 16 March to reach 428.3m barrels.

The size of last week's fall in inventories, as gasoline refineries ramped-up and imports fell off, was exactly as expected - but in the opposite direction.

Yet on a cautionary note, Capital Economics's Thomas Pugh was telling clients: "Inventories of crude oil fell last week as imports dropped and demand from refineries jumped. However, production is still rising rapidly. We expect soaring output to lead to higher stocks and lower prices in the second half of this year."

Separately, on Wednesday the EIA also reported that domestic US oil output climbed past the 10.4m barrel per day mark.

Gold also found a solid bid as the Greenback fell back, with the April 2018 COMEX contract jumping by 1.64% to $1,333.40/oz. In parallel, May 2018 silver was ahead by 2.56% to $16.60/oz. while spot platinum was up by 1.60% at $959.49/oz..

Three-month LME copper was also higher, rising from $6,755 per metric tonne at the open to $6,793, reversing earlier losses which traders had blamed on the previous day's reported increase in LME stocks.

Soft commodities on the other hand were decidedly mixed, with ICE-traded cocoa May 2018 moving back towards its 52-week highs as well, rising by 1.77% to $2,524.0 per tonne.

CME live cattle on the other hand was off by 1.49% to $1.0738 a pound.