Energy: Crude oil and refined product futures witnessed a small build in net longs held by funds while a 14% surge in natural gas helped trigger profit taking resulting in a 14% reduction in the net long held in four Henry Hub deliverable futures and swap contracts. Small buying of crude oil did not hide the fact momentum has slowed and traders have become more risk adverse given the number of multiple forces currently impacting the price of oil in both directions.
Latest: Crude oil (OILUKJUL22 & OILUSJUN22) trades steady near a one-month high with the general risk aversity from a stronger dollar, the economic damage from China lockdowns, inflation and monetary tightening being offset by continued supply concerns from Russia and other OPEC+ producers struggling to meet their production targets. G-7 leaders have joined the EU in making a commitment to phase out their dependency on Russian energy, including oil. While the risk in our opinion remains skewed to the upside, the latest developments are likely to keep crude oil rangebound with focus instead on refined products where multi-year highs are already hurting demand. Monthly oil market reports from EIA Tuesday, followed by OPEC and IEA on Thursday.
Metals: Gold was sold for a third consecutive week with the net-long falling to a three-month low with rising yields and the stronger dollar driving a loss of momentum. The 17% reduction to 82.9k lots was driven by a combination of long liquidation and fresh short selling lifting the gross short to a seven-month high.
Copper has recently suffered from extended China lockdowns hurting the outlook for demand from the worlds top consumer, as well as short selling from macro-based funds using copper as a short play on China. Four weeks of net selling culminated last week with the position flipping to a net short of 8.8k lots for the first time in two years.
Latest: Gold remains at the mercy of a continued rise in US Treasury yields and the stronger dollar with inflation data this week from the U.S. and elsewhere potentially driving additional volatility across market. China and India, two major sources of demand for gold, both seeing their currencies weakening against the dollar, thereby potentially negatively impacting the short-term demand outlook. Overall, however, compared with stocks and bonds, gold’s relative strength continues. As of last Friday, an investor based in dollars holding gold was +16% ahead relative to the S&P 500 and more than 26% versus TLT:arcx an ETF that tracks the performance of long-dated US government bonds. In Europe, an investor based in euros has seen an XAUEUR position outperform the pan-European Stoxx50 index by more than 25% and 20% versus an ETF tracking European government bonds. Support at $1850 and $1830.