Commodity prices diverged this week, with New York oil striking an October-peak and gold futures hitting five-month lows as markets tracked positive US economic data, including Friday’s jobs numbers.
The US jobless rate fell to 7 percent last month — a five-year low — official data showed, raising the odds that the US Federal Reserve could soon cut its huge stimulus program. The sharp drop in the rate from 7.3 percent in October was unexpected and came as the economy generated a solid 203,000 jobs.
Analysts said the strength of the jobs report could give the Fed more reason to begin cutting back its bond-buying.
OIL: Crude future surged on Friday, but also earlier in the week, as Washington reported an unexpected weekly drop in US crude oil inventories, the first decline since mid-September.
“The series of good data releases may hint [at] greater appetite for oil by the US as demand will be boosted by increasing economic activities,” Phillip Futures investment analyst Tan Chee Tat said.
US prices won support also on the announcement that part of the Keystone pipeline in the US, would open next month, bringing oil from Cushing, Oklahoma, to Texas refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.
The market this week also reacted to OPEC’s decision on oil output. The organization, which pumps out one-third of the world’s crude, agreed to hold its crude production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day despite oversupply concerns and competition from cheaper shale oil.
By Friday on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for delivery next month climbed to US$111.20 a barrel from US$110.93 a week earlier.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate, or light sweet crude, for next month rallied to US$97.43 a barrel from US$93.58.
PRECIOUS METALS: Gold tumbled to US$1,210.60 an ounce — the lowest level in five months — in the wake of Friday’s strong US jobs data, before recovering.
By late on Friday on the London Bullion Market, the price of gold dropped to US$1,233 an ounce from US$1,253 a week earlier, while silver slipped to US$19.49 an ounce from US$19.93.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum slipped to US$1,367 an ounce from US$1,376, as palladium jumped to US$741 an ounce from US$724.
COCOA: Prices ended lower after reaching fresh two-year high points at the start of the week owing to tight supplies of the raw material.
By Friday on LIFFE, London’s futures exchange, cocoa for delivery in March fell to £1,736 a tonne, from £1,750 a week earlier.
On ICE Futures US, cocoa for March slipped to US$2,774 a tonne from US$2,789 a week earlier.
RUBBER: Prices rose on the back of positive economic data from China, the world’s biggest buyer of rubber, and owing to supply delays caused by mass anti-government protests in Bangkok, traders said.
The Malaysian Rubber Board’s benchmark SMR20 climbed to US$0.23075 US a kilogram from US$0.23015 the previous week.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day