Oil prices rose in Asian early trading today, Thursday, supported by indications of supply shortages and optimism about demand recovery from China, and gold prices rose to their highest level in two weeks in Asian early trading, at Conversely, the dollar fell to its lowest level in 3 months against the Japanese yen.
At 01:15 UTC, Brent crude oil futures prices increased to $87.02 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were up 0.2% to $80.71 a barrel.
And the Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing announced the easing of anti-Covid-19 restrictions yesterday, a day after clashes between protesters in Guangzhou (south of the country) and the police, amid a series of protests against the more severe restrictions to fight Covid-19 in the world.
But China’s consumer price index revealed on Wednesday that corporate activity contracted the most last November, raising concerns next year, and crude supply is expected to remain tight.
And the US Energy Information Administration said US crude inventories fell by about 13 million barrels, which is the highest level since 2019 in the week ended Nov. 25, but US crude production exceeded 12 million barrels. barrels per day, which is the highest level since before the outbreak of the Corona virus. .
A knowledgeable source told Reuters on Wednesday that the OPEC Plus group’s decision to hold its meeting on Dec. 4 indicates little scope for policy change, which has limited oil’s gains.
Gold at the highest level
Gold prices jumped to their highest level in two weeks in early Asian trading on Thursday after a speech by Federal Reserve (US Central Bank) Chairman Jerome Powell bolstered expectations to hike interest rates US at lower rates.
As of 00:39 UTC, spot gold was up 0.4% to $1,775.77 an ounce, after hitting its highest level since Nov. 16, and US gold futures were up 1. 7% to $1,788.90 an ounce.
Gold closed last November’s trading, up more than 8%, which is the highest monthly rate of increase since July 2020.
For other precious metals:
- Silver rose to $22.26 an ounce.
- Platinum rose to $1038.46 an ounce.
- Palladium rose to $1892.35 an ounce.
The dollar is falling
The dollar fell to its lowest level in 3 months against the yen on Thursday as investors focused on Powell’s comments on the possibility of slowing the pace of interest rate hikes.
The US currency fell 1.32% in recent trading to 136.295 yen, after falling to 136.205 yen, marking the lowest level against the Japanese currency since August 26.
The relationship between the dollar and the yen is very sensitive to any changes in the yields of long-term US Treasury bonds, which fell last night after Powell’s statements, approaching a two-month low of 3.6%, and the yield on the latest transactions in Tokyo it reached 3.6163%.
Markets are considering the possibility of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates by 50 basis points at its next meeting.
And the dollar index – which measures the performance of the US currency against the 6 major currencies, including the yen and the euro – continued its decline compared to yesterday’s session, by more than 1% on Wednesday; It fell another 0.28%, to 105.48 points.
The index fell 5.2% in November, its worst monthly performance since September 2010.
