Commodities Market News

Crude Oil, Gold Forecast: Following China’s commitment to a moderately loose monetary policy in 2025, demand sentiment for Chinese oil and gold has surged, pushing crude oil above $70 and gold above $2,700. Middle East tensions continue to reinforce support levels for these commodities as drastic regional developments unfold.

Iron ore and copper shine as China hints at supercharged stimulus, sparking a metals rally hotter than a blast furnace. With CEWC still ahead, could this be just the start of an electrifying run higher?

Large speculators flipped to net-long exposure yen futures for the first time in six weeks. And it did not come without warning from myself or market positioning over the prior two weeks. Bullish exposure is certainly not extreme at just 2.4k contracts, but with odds of a BOJ hike rising and asset managers net-short by just 5.8k contracts, we could be looking at a stronger yen as we head into the new year given the turbulence we may face during Trump’s second term.

We may have seen an important swing low on the yen looking at the change of speculative market positioning. And that could see a much deeper pullback on USD/JPY.

Crude Oil Week Ahead: Crude oil faces volatility risks ahead of the OPEC meeting, now rescheduled for Thursday to accommodate all members and avoid a clash with the Gulf Summit. Sideways price movements persist, leaning towards a bearish bias for 2025.

Gold analysis: After the big sell-off on Monday, I will try to examine what this means for gold in terms of direction in the near-term outlook, purely from a technical point of view.

How could a potential Israel-Lebanon ceasefire impact oil prices and what are the key levels to watch?

As the latest COT data is up to the close of election day, it shows how traders were positioned ahead of the results. Subsequent market moves suggest they needn't have piled into VIX longs and could have increased net-long exposure to the USD. But they were right to be wary of gold.

Large speculators joined asset managers with a net-short exposure to yen futures ahead of the BOJ meeting, although their bearish positioning may be ‘short lived’ if the central bank really is a step closer to raising rates. De-risking also appears to be in the air ahead of the US election looking at positioning across AUD/USD, gold and the VIX.

It was another flipping week for futures traders, with the $10.6 billion added to USD longs seeing the dollar flip to net-long exposure, large speculators revert to net-short EUR/USD and asset managers flip to net-short JPY/USD exposure.

Bullish bets for the VIX continued to rise, which saw asset managers flip to net-long exposure and large speculators close to doing so themselves. Bullish interest for the USD index also rose alongside prices, yet traders shied away from cured oil and were more bearish on commodity FX. Positioning was also mixed across Wall Street indices.

Long bets and speculative volumes crept higher on JPY futures, while gross-longs on AUD futures increased at the fastest pace in nine years. Bullish signs are also apparent on crude oil futures, and we suspect gold bulls may want to tread with caution going forward.

Crude Oil Weekly Outlook: Oil prices face uncertainty as OPEC's potential December output hike awaits support in Wednesday's meeting. Meanwhile, escalating Middle East tensions and political assassinations heighten concerns of a regional conflict.

There has been a lot of hype over a dovish Fed, for quite some time. Yet asset managers (real money accounts) remain net long. I suspect we're a lot closer to the end of the USD bear case than the beginning.

The commitment of traders (COT) report shows how large speculators are positioned across futures markets on the CME exchange.

Even though lower borrowing costs and a weaker US dollar would normally boost the gold price, in the near-term, rate cuts – be they big or small – may deliver a bust for bullion bulls.