Commodities: Trade war lull boosts prices but weighs on gold

Commodity markets moved higher on Thursday after China announced that it was intending to retaliate to the latest round of US trade tariffs.

According to Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, the Asian giant could easily do so but what mattered most now was avoiding a further escalation which would hurt everyone, Washington, Beijing and the rest of the world.

And later in the session, the US President said that a round of contacts "at a different level" was scheduled for Thursday.

As of 1949 BST, front month Brent crude oil futures were adding 1.02% to $61.11 a barrel on the ICE while on the NYMEX similarly-dated natural gas futures were adding 3.15% to $2.29/MMBtu.

Meanwhile, the Bloomberg commodity index was up by 0.41% to 77.49 and the US dollar spot index 0.30% higher to 98.5010.

Most LME traded base metals contracts also climbed, with three-month copper futures rising from $5,696 pr metric tonne to $5,726.5.

The good news on the international trade front however sapped gold of some of its strength, with the yellow metal slipping by 1.23% to $1,530.10/oz. on COMEX.

Soft commodities were also mostly heading higher, aside from December ICE traded cocoa which was off by 2.59% at $2,185.0 per tonne.