All the major commodities futures such as copper, gold, silver and crude oil dropped sharply on the MCX platform in the week ended on Thursday as global prices fell sharply after the another slashing of Fed interest rates announced late on Tuesday evening. Silver futures prices tumbled by 13% during the last four trading sessions while copper, gold and crude oil futures slipped by 7-8% during the week mainly driven by data that showed demand for petroleum products is waning in the face of record high prices.
The April 2008 crude oil contract was lower by 8% to trade at Rs 4,033 per barrel, up by Rs 340 over previous week. Total volume was 22 lakh barrels while open interest was around 8.7 lakh barrels.
Light sweet crude for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was down $2.42 to $100.12 a barrel in electronic trading at midday in Europe, after earlier falling as low as $99.59. The US Energy Information Administration’s weekly inventory report Wednesday showed overall consumption of crude oil and refined products fell 3.2% over the last four weeks compared with the same period last year. The Silver May 2008 contract was traded lower at Rs. 22,812 per kg, up by nearly Rs 13% over previous week mainly local buying support. The volume was 920 tonne and Open Interest was 187 tonne.
The active April 2008 gold contract was down nearly 7% at Rs 12,014 per 10 gram. Total volume was 37,352 kgs, up from 15,225 kgs. Open Interest was higher at 7,155 kgs from previous week’s 10,050 kgs. Gold tumbled to as low as US$920.30 an ounce, down from $944.20/945.00 late in New York on Wednesday and off Monday’s record high of $1,030.80 an ounce. The active Copper April 2008 contract was traded lower at Rs. 314.40 per kg, up by nearly Rs 8% over previous week on worries about demand and global economic growth knocked industrial metals.