Commodities pick up as Greek parliament passes austerity vote

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A range of primary commodities have been boosted following news that the Greek parliament voted to accept the austerity budget put forward by its leaders.

This means that the country will be able to get a €130 bailout in two years, while there will also be a €100 billion writedown of debt to its creditors.

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As a result of this, copper picked up following a drop at the end of last week, when it looked like there would be no resolution to the Greek crisis. At 7:28am this morning, copper was trading at $8,560 per tonne (£5,417) up almost 1 per cent after dropping 3 per cent in the previous session on Friday. This meant that copper closed lower on the week for the first time since early January.

Aluminium was also up almost 1 per cent this morning to $2,263 (£1,432).

Oil was also up by over $1 to $99.68 in New York and the Brent Crude March contract increased by 94 cents to $118.25 a barrel.

The S&P GSCI index of 24 commodities rose to a six month high last week. Hedge funds increased the amount of bets they placed on commodity prices rising to the highest level since September last year. Data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows that money managers boosted their net-long positions across 18 US futures and options by 13 per cent to 929,199 contracts in the week ending 7 February. 

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