Last week, The Russian President was successful in calming the markets by reaching out to the Ukrainian Prime Minister by seeking to make agreements to resolve the present situation with the former’s counterpart with the goal to prevent further conflict between the two nations.
The market was able to take Putin at face value and hours after more details emerged regarding the incursion of Russian militants into the Ukraine of both leaders sitting together has all but dissipated.
Gold is currently enjoying safe haven as investors are moving way past into the metal and out of stocks and the currencies such as the EUR and the Ruble are similarly being affected. The yellow metal could have further finished much higher but the upward revisions to the U.S. GDP of the second quarter were far too positive to ignore. The yellow metal appears threatened the $1,300 resistance level but was deflated upon the GDP figures hitting the deck.
This build up the pressure for the Fed in order to follow through on their rate hike expectations which will drive gold further down the mile. The metal withdrew and is caught in a range between $1,289 and $1,920 respectively. Geopolitical events are halting the metal bid alongside the expanding macro risks presented by the Eurozone and Japan.
Oil got the big chunk of the full benefit of a strong U.S. economy as demand for the ‘black gold’ is expected to rise. Prices for the WTI still remained above the $95 mark following at around the $94.60 price level. Gasoline demand had already increased last week and as positive numbers keep moving out of the U.S. crude will continue to increase as well. Moreover, the revision to the GDP numbers in the Q2 resulted in pushing crude oil back to their earlier levels.
Gasoline demand had already surged last week and as positive numbers keep coming out of the U.S. crude, it will continue to rise. Oil has able to manage in decoupling from various situations in Libya, Israel-Gaza and Russia-Ukraine and narrowed down the focus on the two largest consumers mainly the U.S. and China.
Additional sanction are expected by the U.S. and E.U. as against Russia for the Ukrainian manoeuvreed incursion. All threats to supply have been marked in the short term with Europe being the largest losers as it depends on Russian natural gas being transported through Ukrainian pipelines.
Copper still continues with its downward slide bit was less pronounced last week as the news of the ‘Congolese’ copper was prevented from being transported into Botswana. Copper was last seen traded at $3,130 which was a six-day low.
The apprehension that people transporting the metal could somehow be inflicted with the Ebola virus following the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has made the Botswana government more vigilant in closing the border to incoming trucks that carry copper. This resulted among exporters who transport copper via trucking services had to divert their routes to Zimbabwe instead of their regular route.