Oil and gold prices hit multi-month peaks this week on the back of improved demand prospects in the world’s two biggest economies — the US and China — and a weaker greenback.
OIL: Global crude prices rallied on improving US demand prospects.
On Wednesday, US crude struck its highest level in four months at US$100.37 a barrel, while Brent achieved the steepest peak this year at about US$110 a barrel.
World oil markets are unexpectedly tight as growth in advanced economies picks up, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, urging OPEC to skip a seasonal output drop as stocks touch six-year lows. The agency said a US-led pick-up in demand in advanced countries has more than compensated for slowing emerging market consumption.
Oil price support this week came also from a rise in Chinese crude imports.
By Friday on London’s Intercontinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April stood at US$108.38 a barrel, compared with US$108.01 for next month’s expired contract a week earlier.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate, or light sweet crude, for next month rose to US$99.98 from US$98.13.
PRECIOUS METALS: Gold hit a three-month peak at US$1,321.52 an ounce — the highest point since Nov. 7 last year, as sister metal silver also reached a three-month high at US$21.30 an ounce.
China’s gold consumption soared 41.36 percent last year, industry data showed this week, with state media reporting on Tuesday that the country has probably overtaken India as the world’s largest consumer of the precious metal.
Last year, China consumed 1,176.4 tonnes of the yellow metal, the China Gold Association said in a statement.
By late on Friday on the London Bullion Market, the price of gold rallied to US$1,320 an ounce (28.4g) from US$1,259.25 a week earlier, while silver jumped to US$21.09 an ounce from US$19.87.
On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, platinum grew to US$1,426 an ounce from US$1,379, as palladium gained to US$740 an ounce from US$711.
COFFEE: The price of coffee stayed around multi-month highs as dry weather in Brazil threatened output in the world’s biggest producer and exporter of the commodity.
The price surges are caused by “concerns about the impacts of the drought on the Brazilian coffee supply,” Commerzbank analysts said.
By Friday on ICE Futures US, Arabica for delivery in May stood at US$0.141 a pound (0.45kg), compared with US$0.13660 for next month’s contract a week earlier.
On LIFFE, Robusta for May traded at US$1,802 a tonne, compared with US$1,829 for next month’s contract.
SUGAR: Prices advanced in London and New York.
By Friday on LIFFE, the price of a tonne of white sugar for delivery in May stood at US$441 compared with US$432.50 for the March contract a week earlier.
On ICE Futures US, the price of unrefined sugar for delivery in May traded at US$0.15.94 a pound, compared with US$0.1568 for the contract due next month.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by