FxWirePro Commodities Watch (Metals)

Background:

Metals form an important part of global commodities. Precious metals serve beyond their traditional usage and as a store of value or as a hedge against inflation. Industrial metals like Zinc are important gauges to determine the global economic activities.

In this FxWirePro commodities watch, we are to present to our readers the performance of the various commodities, categorically classified, which are keys to understand the broader global economy. For example, copper is considered as a barometer of global economic activity or gold is considered as a safe haven.

2017 performance:

In this part, we present the metals, both precious and industrial.

• In 2017, the best performer in the metal pack has been Palladium which rose 43.7 percent, followed by, Aluminum (28.6 percent), Copper (25.6 percent), Zinc (23.5 percent), Nickel (20.7 percent), and Lead (19 percent).
• Gold was up 11.1 percent in 2017, while the Silver was up 2.8 percent.
• The worst performer was Iron ore, which was down 6.1 percent, followed by Tin (-5.3 percent), and Platinum (-4 percent).

The metal pack was the best performer of 2017 with a 14.5 percent gain. In 2018, Sino-American trade was is taking a toll on metals.

2018 performance:

• So far in 2018, Nickel has been the best performer with +4.1 percent gain.
• The worst performer of the group has been Zinc (-32.1 percent), followed by Copper (-21.9 percent), Lead (-19.6 percent), Palladium (-18.2 percent), Platinum (-16.7 percent), Silver (-13 percent), Aluminum (-11 percent), gold (-9.1 percent), Tin (-6.2 percent), and Iron ore (+5.2).

As a whole, the metal pack is down by -13.5 percent in 2018. The pack is down 7.4 percent since our review a month ago.