Commodities slip back over China concerns and first European summit of 2012

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After a rally at the end of the week, a number of commodities have fallen back in early trading this morning.

With China mostly back to work this week after its New Year celebrations, there were concerns that the country would be returning to business this week with less demand in its economy.

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European leaders are also meeting this week, and markets are concerned that yet again they will fail to properly deal with the European debt crisis. It appears that they will continue to struggle to do a deal to solve Greece’s debt problems, while also attempting to find ways to stimulate the European economy that seems almost certain to plunge into recession.

At the end of last week, the official three-month copper price on the LME had reached $8,622 (£5,491) but in early trading today had slumped to $8,385 ($5,341).

Aluminium was also down from Friday’s official price of $2,277 (£1,450) to $2,234 (£1,423).

Brent crude oil was down 40 cents also this morning to $111.06 a barrel for March settlement.

Cotton also fell below the $90 level to $88.26. 

 

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