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Gold prices ticked lower on Friday, on track for their second-consecutive weekly loss, after Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials made clear that they are in no hurry to cut their benchmark rate, while cocoa prices pulled back further from recent highs.
Spot gold (XAUUSD:CUR) was down 1.5% for the week, while silver (XAGUSD:CUR), which follows the lead set by gold, declined 2%.
The market latched onto the fact the Fed kept the language referring to a future reduction in rates. However, the realisation that interest rates are likely to remain higher for longer eventually weighed on sentiment, ANZ Research said.
Meanwhile, cocoa prices (CC1:COM) extended their slide to a fourth-straight session, on track for a second week of losses. Futures were down 30% so far this week – their biggest in at least over a year. On the day, prices fell 9.2% to $7,386.79.
Futures in New York slid as much as 9.3% to the lowest since mid-March, before paring some losses. Prices are now about 30% lower than a record high set two weeks ago, Bloomberg reported. “Moves have also been more erratic as a liquidity crunch upended the market after it became more expensive for traders to maintain their positions.”
Chocolate maker Hershey (HSY) is scheduled to announce Q1 earnings results before market open. The consensus EPS Estimate is $2.77 (-6.4% Y/Y) and the consensus Revenue Estimate is $3.11B (+4.0% Y/Y).
Elsewhere, European natural gas prices rallied yesterday despite comfortable storage and a bearish outlook, ING analysts said.
While there are some concerns over increased competition for LNG from Asia, storage data is still extremely comfortable at 63% full, weather forecasts for NW Europe show milder-than-usual weather over the next 2 weeks, and Norwegian flows are slowly recovering after some outages, the brokerage said. ING continues to hold a bearish view on the European natural gas market.
Recent Commodity Price Movements and A look At Some ETFs
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Commodity ETFs
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