Primary Commodities Report for February 12 – 16

By: Apoorva Kuppa, The Quinnipiac University Economics Research Team 

Commodities Index 

Source: Yahoo Finance and own calculations. Rates are in United States dollars per one (1) unit of goods. Brent Crude Oil and Natural Gas are measured in barrels, Gold is per ounce, and the ETF is per share. They are all indexed to be at 100 at the start of the period.  

For the week of February 12th to 16th, the prices of Brent Crude Oil, Gold, and Nickel remained relatively stable. In the first two days, Brent Crude Oil (brown) increased by 1% but quickly decreased by 1.5%. By the end of the week, it had slowly risen by 2.35%. Mid-week, the price of Gold (red) dipped by 1.38% but rose again to finish the week down approximately 0.5%. Early on, Nickel (blue) decreased by 2.78% but steadily increased by 2.1% throughout the rest of the week, finishing at the same price as the previous week. Lastly, Natural Gas experienced the most significant price change this week, with a drop of 14.2%. The price appears to be increasing again towards the end of the week, ending the week down nearly 13%.

Commodities Historical Trends 

Source: Yahoo Finance and own calculations. Rates are in United States dollars per one (1) unit of goods. Brent Crude Oil and Natural Gas are measured in barrels, Gold is per ounce, and the ETF is per share. The center line is a rolling three-month average. The upper and lower boundaries are the average plus and average minus one standard deviation, respectively, for the same three-month period. 

Over the past 3 months, the prices of Natural Gas and Nickel have been consistently following downward trajectories, recently dipping below one standard deviation. Brent Crude Oil has exhibited fluctuations over the same period, so we will be watching to see if the recent increase in price will continue, as it hovers above its upper bound. The price of Gold has maintained a pattern of oscillation between the lower and upper bounds and currently sits just below its three-month rolling average.