Markets were off to a slow start this week as the DJ-UBS Commodity Futures Index dropped by half a percentage point and the major U.S. stock indexes were all in negative territory in early afternoon trading. The Shanghai Futures Exchange is closed for this week’s Lunar New Year celebrations and trading volumes at the London Metal Exchange were reportedly light today as base metal prices remain in a holding pattern. LME official 3-mo. copper was little changed this morning at $8,258/mt ($3.746/lb.) but 3-mo. copper dipped below $8,200/mt in PM trading. Most of the other base metals were down in afternoon trading in London with only 3-mo. tin holding onto gains after having recently trading around $24,850/mt.
In New York, COMEX Mar copper was down nearly 4 cents to $3.72/lb. while gold futures retreated below $1,650/to. Crude oil futures bucked the trend, rebounding above $96/bbl as the dollar eased to $1.341 vs the Euro. On Wall Street, the Dow Industrials slipped 0.2% early this afternoon as the yield on 10-year Treasury notes was little changed around 1.96%.
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