Commodities Markets Summary: Treading the Crucial Lows

On Friday, most of the world's crucial commodities line-up was down spurred by weak Chinese economic data, losses in the euro and renewed problems in Greece over a failed negotiation for its bailout deal.

New York's main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) light sweet crude for delivery in March, plummeted $1.17 to $98.67 a barrel, while the Brent North Sea crude delivery, also for March, dropped $1.28 to $117.31 in London deals, the AAP reported.

Spot prices of precious safe-haven yellow metal gold dropped 0.9 per cent to $1,715.99 an ounce as of 2.49pm EST (0649 Saturday AEDT), hitting a low of $1,703.69. It was the bullion's second straight weekly loss.

US gold futures for April delivery closed $15.90 an ounce on Friday, at $1,725.30, while silver dropped 1.2 per cent at $33.46 an ounce. Other metals such as spot platinum was also down $0.99 at $1,651 an ounce, and spot palladium down 1.3 per cent to $697.35.

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Copper was low key on Friday, maintaining its first weekly loss since early January, as it went down three per cent that day based on the 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB index.

The three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange dropped 3.14 per cent to $275 to close at $8,485 a tonne, sliding from Thursday's peak at $8,765, its highest so far since Sept. 16.

Meanwhile, the key COMEX copper contract in New York dropped 11.65 US cents or three per cent to close at $3.8620 per pound, almost close to the bottom of the $3.8515 to $3.9785 session range. It hit a five-month peak Thursday at $3.9895.

Copper stocks also fell to 850 tonnes, bringing total inventories to 312,750 tonnes.

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