Sweet tooth — traders buy commodities
Commodities priced jumped today, after prices fell to a ten-moth low last week. Sugar spun up to its highest price in more than a month. Aluminum rose, and coffee perked up, too.
Not all commodities were up. Gold fell again, after dripping more than 10 percent last week. The news that investors think candy is dandy and gold is…old, is making The Marketplace Daily Pulse race a little — you could call it a sugar high!
Bloomberg News reported raw sugar for March delivery advanced as much as 3 percent, the most since Aug. 24, as an 18 percent drop over the past month spurred buying interest. Egypt’s state-run Sugar and Integrated Industries Co. bought 50,000 metric tons of raw sugar at a tender yesterday, paying $628.60 a ton.
Arabica coffee for December delivery rose 1.7 percent, to $2.3535 a pound on ICE. Crude oil for November gained 0.2 percent to $80.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gold wasn’t the only safe haven investment to ease lower today. Silver for immediate delivery dropped more than eight percent. Metals associated with the construction industry fell also, as new home sales figures came in lower. Lead for three-month delivery dropped 2.7 to $1,901.75 a ton on the London Metal Exchange. Copper was down 3.5 percent at $7,100 a ton.
Bloomberg quoted a UBS analyst explaining why the shine has come off gold.
A rising fear factor coupled with sinking confidence levels should be helping gold, but this isn’t happening because of overriding concerns about liquidity, European bank funding and margin calls amid a stronger U.S. dollar,” UBS AG analyst Edel Tully said in a report today. “For now, investors are only finding comfort in the relative safety of cash.
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