Primary Commodities Report for February 19 – 23
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 19th to 23rd, the prices of Brent Crude Oil, Gold, Natural Gas, and Nickel finished relatively the same. The price of Brent Crude Oil (brown) experienced a decrease of 2.3%. By the end of the week, the percentage changes in the prices of Gold (red) and Nickel (blue) were similar, with Gold increasing by 1.34% and Nickel increasing by 1.96%. Notably, Natural Gas (green) exhibited the highest volatility, spiking midweek but ultimately ending with only a 0.4% decrease in price.
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 three months, the prices of Natural Gas and Nickel have consistently trended downward, recently dropping below one standard deviation. Meanwhile, Brent Crude Oil has experienced fluctuations during the same period, prompting us to monitor whether its recent price increase will be sustained, as it sits above its upper bound. The price of Gold has continued to fluctuate between its lower and upper limits, currently positioned just above its three-month rolling average.
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