Commodity wrap: gold smashes $5,600, silver tops $120, Brent jumps as prices go parabolic

Gold prices breached $5,600 per ounce for the first time on Thursday on rising safe-haven demand for the metal.

Silver topped $120 per ounce on COMEX as prices continued to skyrocket, hitting a series of record highs.

On Thursday, Brent oil futures prices soared, reaching a four-month peak. The March contract of Brent hit $70 per barrel for the first time since September.

Meanwhile, intense speculative trading, primarily by Chinese bulls, caused copper prices to soar to a record high of over $14,000 per ton, marking the metal's largest single-day gain in years.

Gold and silver break records

Gold prices continued to surge to new record highs as the yellow metal cleared $5,600 per ounce on Thursday.

Gold had surged past the $5,000 threshold for the first time this Monday, marking a weekly gain of over 10%.

This rally is attributed to a combination of strong factors: robust safe-haven investment, persistent central bank purchases, and a depreciation of the dollar.

The strength persisted into early-morning trading in Asia, driving gold on COMEX to a new peak of $5,625.89 per ounce at one point.

Prices were currently just shy of $5,600 an ounce.

Experts and brokerages had raised their forecast for gold, with many expecting the metal to hit $6,000 by the end of this year.

However, the way prices have been behaving, one would not be surprised if that ceiling were breached sooner.

“Profit-taking has so far failed to disrupt the broader uptrend, let alone even hint that traders are expressing much caution,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.

While the fundamental reasons for holding gold are sound and logical, the critical question is whether these reasons are sufficiently persuasive to justify increasing exposure at today's price levels, Morrison added.

Elsewhere, silver prices on COMEX hit a record of $120.845 per ounce on Thursday. Silver remained the standout, climbing more than 65% this month.

“Demand has been driven by safe-haven flows, tight supply, industrial usage in electronics and renewables, and momentum-driven buying as investors search for alternatives to gold,” Morrison said.

Additionally, the three-month copper contract on the London Metal Exchange hit a record high of $14,491 per ton, thereby breaching the $14,000-per-ton mark for the first time ever.

Oil climbs to 4-month high

Oil prices extended their gains on Thursday on the back of simmering geopolitical tensions and concerns about the loss of supply.

Concerns about a possible US military strike on Iran, OPEC’s fourth-largest producer with an output of 3.2 million barrels per day, caused Brent oil futures prices to surge on Thursday, reaching a four-month high due to the potential impact on supply.

The March Brent crude oil contract on the Intercontinental Exchange hit a more than four-month high of $70.35 per barrel on Thursday.

It was trading close to $69 per barrel at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, the price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil topped $65 per barrel for the first time since September.

“At this morning’s high, crude oil had added 6% since Friday’s close, and WTI is now butting up against an area of resistance which held throughout September,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.

Prices were supported by the latest US inventory update from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday, which revealed a slightly larger-than-anticipated drawdown in stockpiles.

“But the main reason behind the latest leg of this rally has been rising geopolitical risk, particularly the escalation in tensions between the US and Iran,” Morrison said.