Friday July 3, 12:43 pm Eastern Time
FOCUS- Commodity markets catch U.S. holiday mood
LONDON, July 3 (Reuters) - European commodities markets were mostly
becalmed on Friday due to the U.S. Independence Day Holiday and closure
of key American exchanges.
But there was a last minute flurry on the London Metal Exchange (LME),
triggered by zinc, as traders squared their books ahead of the weekend
and sought to achieve favourable technical closes on the weekly charts.
Zinc was driven higher by commission house buying to a peak of $1,062.50
a tonne before falling back to close at $1,051, up $31 from Thursday.
Copper and aluminium dawdled for most of the day but managed to notch
small gains.
Gold traded higher in quiet market conditions and was last quoted at
$294.50/$295.00, compared with the previous close at $293.60/$294.10.
The market kept a wary eye on currencies, especially the yen and the
battered South African rand which has lost 32.1 percent of its value
since the start of the year.
The local rand gold price was at all-time highs on Friday after the
South African currency hit its lowest ever level of 6.42 bid against the
dollar.
The rand gold price was last bid at 1,868.60 rand per ounce -- a level
which dealers said should attract new producer forward sales from South
African producers.
Cocoa, coffee and sugar markets were subdued and drifted mostly lower.
Some prices today were as follows:
Friday Thursday
Ldn Spot Gold ($ per ounce) 294.75 294.10
IPE Brent Crude Oil (Aug) 13.51 13.58
London Metal Exchange
(Three months delivery)
Copper ($ per tonne) 1,616.50 1,611.00
Aluminium ($ per tonne) 1,302.50 1,298.00
LIFFE
Coffee ($/tonne)(Sept) 1,560.00 1,573.00
Cocoa (Stg/tonne) (Sept) 1,082.00 1,085.00
White sugar ($/tonne) (Aug) 255.30 255.10
CBOT wheat ($/bushel) (Sept) 2.68 2.82
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