Early Monday morning finds the US dollar index under pressure though having erased much of its overnight weakness as of this writing.
Gold continued to move higher, not surprising given its role as a safe-haven market.
The Grains sector was under pressure across the board, led by continued commercial pressure.
Morning Summary: As the curtain rises on this last week of February, the last week of meteorological winter, the commodity complex is generally seeing follow-through pressure from last Friday. The big mover overnight was natural gas as the spot-month contract (NGH25) fell as much as 23.5 cents (5.6%) and was still showing a loss of 21.6 cents (5.1%) at this writing. What got into the Widow Maker overnight? We could ask that, while acknowledging this is pretty much what the market does routinely, with the answer most likely being a turn to more spring-like weather this week across the United States. This raises an even more important question: Was Punxsutawney Phil wrong?! Think of all that could mean. Anyway, I digress. The US dollar index ($DXY) spent the evening yo-yoing back and forth across unchanged with the greenback in the red by 0.04 pre-dawn Monday. Gold (GCJ25) was higher, shockingly enough, as the April issue gained as much as $10.50. As I’ve told Kitco News the last number of Fridays, we can throw both technical and fundamental analysis of the gold market out the window at this time. It’s a safe-haven play meaning both investors and hedgers should remain active for the foreseeable future.
