Commodities: Bitcoin plunges as negative sentiment snowballs

The spotlight in markets was squarely on a plunge in the price of Bitcoin in an otherwise calm session for most commodities.

At the low point of the day, Bitcoin was down by 30% as negative sentiment continued to snowball following a week full of negative news-flow for the cryptocurrency.

The latest bit of bad news was the announcement from Michael Novogratz, on Friday, that he was shelving plans to launch a cryptocurrency hedge fund.

It came close on the heels of South Korean bitcoin exchange Youbit´s announcement, on the previous Tuesday, that it would close its doors after a hack that saw 17% of its total assets robbed.

Among the more mainstream commodities, the biggest movements were seen in gold, natural gas and cocoa futures.

February 2018 COMEX-traded gold extended a recent bounce to rise 0.65% to $1,278.80/oz..

In parallel, NYMEX natural gas futures for next month delivery traded 2.66% higher on Friday to close at $2.67/MMBtu, but they remained near the bottom of their year-to-date trading range.

That came amid news that Chinese natural gas imports shot higher by 56% year-on-year in November to reach 4.06m tons, according to figures from the country's General Administration of Customs.

As a group, soft commodities were the weakest area of the market, with the March 2018 cocoa contract on the ICE underperforming by a wide margin, losing 5.14% to trade at $1,809.00 per metric tonne.

Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate futures for prompt month delivery were up by just 0.19% to $58.47 a barrel on NYMEX as Baker Hughes reported that the US oil rig count was unchanged over the latest week, at 747.

By the close of trading, the US dollar spot index was little changed, edging higher by 0.07% to 93.35, but the Bloomberg commodity index was notably higher, gaining 0.55% to 85.75.