Commodity Roundup: Gold clinches record high again, set for fourth-weekly rise

Gold prices (XAUUSD:CUR) were headed for a fourth-consecutive week of gains on Friday, their longest streak of weekly rise this year, as geopolitical risks counter pressure from expectation that U.S. Federal Reserve would keep interest rates high. Spot gold (XAUUSD:CUR) climbed to a record of $2,400.73 an ounce, bringing its gains this week to 2.4%.

Fed officials said on Thursday there was no urgency to ease rates. Boston Fed President Susan Collins commented that the strength of the economy and an uneven retreat in inflation argued against a near-term push to lower rates.

“Appetite for the precious metal remains strong, particularly from central banks, which continue to rotate out of U.S. Treasuries and into hold. Geopolitical risks are supporting safe haven buying,” ANZ said in a note.

Turning to energy commodities, crude oil prices were trading higher, but were set for a weekly loss, with Brent (CO1:COM) on track to break a streak of four-straight weekly gains. “It is clear that the rally in oil has run out of momentum and in the absence of further escalation in the Middle East or supply disruptions, we expect to see a pullback,” ING analysts said in a note, as they maintained their forecast for Brent to average $87/bbl over the second quarter of this year.

Meanwhile, OPEC left its demand growth forecasts unchanged for both 2024 and 2025 at 2.25m b/d and 1.85m b/d respectively. The group cut its non-OPEC supply growth forecast to 1 million barrels a day for 2024 from 1.1 million barrels a day previously. It also revised down its estimate of non-OPEC supply growth in 2025 by 100,000 b/d to 1.3 million b/d.

Elsewhere, USDA released the latest WASDE report on April 11. Demand for corn was increased, while soybean demand was lowered. Forecast for US corn ending stocks for 2023/24 was lowered from 2.17b bushels to 2.12b bushels, which was driven by a small revision higher in domestic demand estimates. The USDA also lowered ending stocks for the global balance by 1.4mt to 318.3mt for the 2023/24 season.

For soybeans, the agency increased the U.S. ending stock estimates from 315m bushels to 340m bushels, which is above the roughly 319m bushels the market was expecting. This decrease was driven by a cut in both domestic demand and export demand, as per reports.