Commodities tumble after “Stoptober”

FXstreet.com (Athens) – Despite the “greenback” collapse after the shutdown of the US government, oil prices moved sharply downwards mostly due to the risk-aversion environment.

Crude Oil tumbles, whilst gold soars as risk-aversion strikes back

The American dollar falls apart as the US Federal Government is in shutdown for the first time in 17 years (since 1996), putting as many as 800,000 federal employees out of work today, closing national parks and halting some government services after Congress failed to break a partisan deadlock. Crude oil falls on both sides of the Atlantic ocean amidst Italian political tensions and of course due to the shutdown of the American government. Elaborating on, U.S. crude settled 54 cents lower yesterday at $102.33 a barrel, paring losses from a session low of $101.05. Front-month U.S. crude oil futures ended the month 4.6 percent lower, the first monthly loss since May.Front-month Brent crude oil futures settled 26 cents lower at $108.37 a barrel, losing 5.1 percent for the month, also the first monthly decline since May. Brent hit a session low of $107.22 but ended the quarter with a 5.8 percent increase, also driven by sharp gains in August. At the time of writing, WTI crude oil is trading down (-0.32%), while Brent Crude is also heading down (-0.53%). Regarding gold and despite the fact that due to the safe “appealing” of the commodity, investors could easily have priced in a boosting demand regarding the safe-haven currency, gold also loses its glittering, moving softly down (-0.2%). On Monday over the looming US government shutdown, gold prices posted their best quarterly performance in a year, despite weak safe-haven buying amid uncertainty over a looming U.S. government shutdown. Finally, the Commodity Index fall in September at 90.2 versus 92.9 in August, amidst US, Italian political jitters and a generally "risk-aversion" environment.