19th March 2017

 Gold tacked on a further gain on Friday, but the rate of advance slowed noticeably from what we saw on both Wednesday and Thursday. Nevertheless, the precious metal was up some 2.2% on the week. There were modest gains seen in the rest of the group as well and all three complexes finished higher on the week. Things were fairly quiet in other commodity markets on Friday; oil finished flat, but prices were still up almost 1% on the week. Despite the advance, a significant amount of length has left the oil market and we are not sure it will return in size anytime soon. In this regard, the CFTC reports that more than 86,000 contracts were shed in WTI as of last Wednesday, the biggest one-week reduction in months. Meanwhile, although inventory build data has tapered off in recent weeks, the sizable accumulation seen since the beginning of the year is playing an important role in keeping rallies in check.