Copper, gold sustain minor recovery in tepid session

Base and precious metals staged a modest bounce-back Wednesday in the US amid reduced liquidity and investors awaiting Friday’s US employment data.

Copper for December settlement on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange ticked up 0.10 cents or 0.1 percent to $2.1680 per pound. Trade has ranged from $2.1585 to $2.1815.

Comex gold for December delivery gained 20 cents or less than 0.1 percent to $1,269.70 per ounce. Yesterday, the contract dipped to the lowest point since June 23.

The market sustained a massive selloff yesterday, primarily driven by the dollar hitting a multi-month high and a lack of investment activity due to an extended Chinese holiday.

“Base metals were mixed and mostly little changed from prior close as volume remains subdued with the absence of Chinese participants,” Benjamin Wong of ADM Investor Services said. “Metals eased yesterday mostly weighed by a rallying US dollar and reports that the European Central Bank is looking to taper its asset purchase program.”

Investors are now awaiting Friday’s blockbuster jobs report, which is expected to show 171,000 Americans joined the labour market last month. In a precursor to that figure, the ADP non-farm employment change at 154,000 jobs was below the forecast of 166,000.

Currently, around 60 percent of investors expect the Federal Reserve to raise rates in December. With no October meeting and a presidential election approaching, December is widely seen as the last possible time for the Fed to restart interest rate normalisation this year.

In other data, US final services PMI September came in at 52.3, above the 51.9 estimate. ISM non-manufacturing PMI over the same period stood at 57.1, besting the economic consensus of 53.1.

Lastly, factory orders month-over-month in August ticked up 0.2 percent, with speculation pegging the number at -0.4 percent.

Turning to US markets, the Dow Jones industrial average and S&P were up 0.7 percent and 0.6 percent respectively, while the dollar softened 0.1 percent to $1.1218 against the euro.

In other commodities, light sweet crude (WTI) oil futures on the Nymex jumped $1.14 or 2.3 percent to $49.82 per barrel, while the most active Comex silver contract stood at $17.870 per ounce, up 9.5 cents.

(Editing by Tom Jennemann)

The post Copper, gold sustain minor recovery in tepid session appeared first on The Bullion Desk.

from The Bullion Desk http://ift.tt/2dSZOiw
via IFTTT