Oil, gold trade around record highs

February contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude went as high as $100.09 per barrel on Thursday before settling back to close 44 cents lower at $99.18 per barrel.

Nymex February gasoline was 3 cents lower to $2.54 per gallon and February heating oil was down 2 cents to 2.72 per gallon while March natural gas dropped 16 cents to $7.71 per million British thermal units.

Crude oil stockpiles dropped 4 million barrels to 289.6 million barrels in the week ending December 28,
according to the weekly inventories report from the US Energy Information Administration, while gasoline inventories rose 1.9 million barrels to 207.8 million barrels and distillates in storage were up 600,000 barrels to 127.2 million barrels.

Gold came close to an all-time high price and closed at its highest ever in New York on Thursday.

February gold traded at $872.90 per troy ounce, just shy of its all-time high of $873 per troy ounce, before closing at $869.10 per troy ounce, $9.10 higher than Wednesday’s close and its highest-ever closing price.

March Silver added 21 cents to $15.50 per troy ounce, while April platinum gained $5.80 to $1,551.80 per troy ounce.

Among base metals, March copper added 12 cents to $3.19 per pound in New York while three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up $215 to $6,970 per tonne.

Lead was $35 higher to $2,650 per tonne while aluminium gained $67 to $2,505 per tonne, zinc was up $124 to $2,575 per tonne, and tin jumped $400 to $16,750 per tonne.

Nickel closed at $28,950 per tonne in London.

Grains prices rose on the session.

Wheat gained its daily limit of 30 cents for both the March and May contracts, to $9.45 per bushel and $9.52 per bushel respectively on the Chicago Board of Trade, on falling inventories and higher demand globally.

Meanwhile, March CBOT corn added 3.5 cents to $4.65 per bushel and March soybeans jumped 18.75 cents to $12.68 per bushel.

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