By Grant Smith
Nov. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil, copper and corn gained as a government rescue of Citigroup Inc. shored up global investor confidence and a weaker U.S. dollar enhanced the appeal of commodities invesments.
Oil rose above $52, following European equities and U.S. stock index futures higher, after the government guaranteed $306 billion of Citigroup assets. The U.S. currency dropped versus the euro and yen, making dollar-denominated commodities more attractive to foreign buyers. The S&P GCSI Index of raw materials remains 58 percent below its July record.
“The decline in commodities prices has been exaggerated and I think we are in the process of bottoming out,” said Eugen Weinberg, a Commerzbank AG analyst in Frankfurt. “With prices failing to cover operating costs, we’ll see production cuts not just in oil but other raw materials, which will aid a recovery.”
Crude oil for January delivery advanced as much as $2.16, or 4.3 percent, to $52.09 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It traded for $51.24 at 1:24 p.m. London time.
Copper for delivery in three months gained as much as 7.6 percent to $3,810 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange, the largest intraday gain since Nov. 10. The contract was at $3,765 a ton as of 1:24 p.m. local time.
Demand for industrial metals may be boosted by plans for a second Chinese stimulus package announced this weekend. The National Development and Reform Commission, the nation’s top economic planning agency, proposed tax cuts, salary increases and larger housing subsidies.
Corn and soybeans advanced for the first time in five days. Corn for December delivery rose as much as 2.8 percent to $3.48 a bushel in electronic trading on the Chicago Board of Trade.
OPEC Meeting
Oil ministers from the 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries group meet in Cairo on Nov. 29. Slowing global demand has left a 1 million-barrel-a-day oversupply that needs to be removed by year-end, Venezuela’s Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said yesterday.
“We are worried about the direction of prices,” Shokri Ghanem, Libya’s top oil official, said in an interview from Tripoli. “We need to see if the oil price is falling because liquidity is leaving the market or if there is too much oil in the market.”
Brent crude oil for January settlement was at $50.50 a barrel, up $1.31, on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange at 1:25 p.m. London time.
“Oil is following the equity move, and also the euro- dollar again,” said Gerrit Zambo, an oil trader at BayernLB in Munich. “When we broke through $50, a critical point, there wasn’t much further downside.”
Ghanem said that it’s too early to say how much supply needs to be cut when OPEC meets at the end of the week.
The benchmark crude price used by OPEC, derived from the cost of oil produced by each of its 13 members, fell to its lowest since February 2005 on Nov. 21. This so-called OPEC basket declined $1.50 to $42.56 a barrel, the group said in an e-mail today.
Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index added 3.7 percent to 188.95 at 10:25 a.m. in London as all 19 industry groups increased except for auto-related shares. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index added 1.9 percent.
The dollar weakened 1.2 percent to $1.2690 per euro as of 12:06 p.m. London time from $1.2540 on Nov. 21.
To contact the reporters on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net
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