The past week has seen a continuation of commodity-market volatility, with agricultural and gas futures markets in particular seeing steep increases on both weekly and monthly prices.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) saw steep increases in the prices of natural gas and ethanol, with the former jumping by a huge 21% on the week and 6.3% on the month, while ethanol increased by nearly 5% on the week, representing a 22.5% monthly increase.
Meanwhile, last week’s Commodity Watch revealed worrying rises in the prices of coffee, cotton and sugar and this week has seen no reprieve. The price of cotton futures traded on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) rose by 4.6% on the week, reaching 25% on the month; sugar rose by over 3% on the week, and 25% on the month, while coffee rose by 2.3% on the week and 12.3% on the month.
Other notable agricultural risers were corn, wheat and soya beans which have been volatile for some months now. Corn was up by nearly 4% on the week, another 25% monthly increase, wheat almost 7% on the week and 9.5% on the month, while soya beans increased by 2.2%, a 16% increase on the month.
Other notable risers this week include palladium which is up by over 9% on the week and by nearly 13% on the month and silver which is up by over 6% on the week and by nearly 11.5% on the month.
Another recent commodity hotspot is natural rubber, with the Financial Times reporting a rise of 65% over the past year, and a tripling in price over the past two years. Last week's Bangkok price of $4.05 fell just short of April's all-time high of $4.10.
Few commodities reported a drop this week, however meats and livestock and some metals did, with nickel falling by 3.1% on the week, tin by nearly 3.6% and zinc by almost 4%. Meanwhile, live cattle fell by 3.3% on the week and lean hogs by 6.3%.
