2017.04.2007:25:00UTC+00Fxwirepro: Commodities Watch (metals)

Metals form an important part of global commodities. Precious metals serve beyond their traditional usage and as a store of value or as a hedge against inflation. Industrial metals like Zinc are important to gauge to determine the global economic activities.

In this FxWirePro commodities watch, we are to present our readers the performance of the various commodities, categorically classified, which are keys to understand the broader global economy. For example, copper is considered as a barometer of global economic activity or gold is considered as a safe haven.

After being the best performer last year after energy, this pack is clearly an outperformer this year.

In this part, we present the metals, both precious and industrial. Compared to last year, the performance of metals has been lackluster in 2017.

• The best performer in the metal pack has been Aluminium which rose 13 percent, followed by Silver (9.6 percent), Gold (8.9 percent), lead (4.9 percent), and Palladium (3.2 percent).
• Industrial barometer Copper is up just 0.35 percent this year.
• Platinum and Zinc are flat for the year so far.
• The worst performer is Iron ore, which is down 18.6 percent, followed by Nickel (-8.4 percent), and Tin (-5.7 percent).

In 2016, the metals as a pack were up more than 28 percent but this year they are up just 0.65 percent so far.