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\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" * Weak dollar, Fed’s indefinite stimulus pledge fuels rally * Copper, oil at 4-month highs; gold at 6-month peak By Barani Krishnan and Eric Onstad NEW YORK\/LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Copper, gold and oil surged to multi-month highs on Friday after the U.S. Federal Reserve’s move to stimulate the world’s top economy spurred expectations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-14642","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}* Weak dollar, Fed's indefinite stimulus pledge fuels rally\n * Copper, oil at 4-month highs; gold at 6-month peak\n\n\n By Barani Krishnan and Eric Onstad\n NEW YORK\/LONDON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Copper, gold and oil\nsurged to multi-month highs on Friday after the U.S. Federal\nReserve's move to stimulate the world's top economy spurred\nexpectations for a fresh wave of investment flows into commodity\nmarkets. \n Many analysts were cautious, however, about sustained price\ngains in some sectors like industrial metals unless physical\ndemand picks up. \n The Fed said it will buy $40 billion worth of mortgage debt\na month until the U.S. jobs market improves, fueling a rally in\nrisky assets that have suffered for months from uncertainty on\nthe global economic outlook. \n The dollar index touched a four-month low, making it\ncheaper for holders of other currencies to buy commodities\nprices in dollars. \n Copper futures and Brent crude oil in London both hit\nfour-month highs as global stocks surged to a 13-month peak.\nGold surged to a six-month high, while grains performed more\nmodestly. \n The bellwether 19-commodity Thomson Reuters-Jefferies CRB\nindex hit its highest level since early March. \n Investors cheered the Fed decision to make its third round\nof quantitative easing -- dubbed QE3 -- indefinite. Fed Chairman\nBen Bernanke said the central bank will keep up with bond\npurchases until it is able to bring down the unemployment rate,\ncurrently at 8.1 percent. \n \"The Fed will be indirectly adding more liquidity into the\nasset markets and that money will need to go somewhere and part\nof it will go into commodities,\" said Olivier Jakob, at\nPetromatrix in Zug, Switzerland. \n The positive impact of the Fed's policy move, however,\nunless backed by a recovery in demand and economies in Europe\nand China, could prove fleeting, other analysts say. \n \"The Fed's move is certainly bullish for commodities, but I\ndon't think we want to assume that the bullishness in\ncommodities is as open ended as the QE3 program itself,\" said\nVishnu Varathan, market economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank. \n \"The decisive thing is going to be a question of how things\nin the euro zone and China will pan out because if China's\ndemand doesn't recover as quickly then a lot of this euphoria is\ngoing to fade.\"\n \n MIDDLE EAST PREMIUM FOR OIL\n Other stories that could decide the narrative in commodities\ninclude violence in the Middle East, which has the oil market in\nits grip, and extremities in crop weather, which have already\nsent U.S. soybean prices to record highs. These factors weren't\npresent during earlier QE rounds by the Fed in 2008 and 2010.\n Escalating anti-U.S. protests over a film demonstrators\nconsider blasphemous to Islam kept the geopolitical risk of oil\nsupply disruption in North Africa and the Middle East in focus\non Friday, along with the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.\n \"The Middle East premium is starting to be thrown into the\noil price a little bit, adding about $5 to the price,\" said\nJonathan Barratt, chief executive of BarrattBulletin, a\nSydney-based commodity research firm.\n Brent crude rose for a seventh straight session,\npeaking at a May high of $117.95 a barrel before paring gains to\nbelow $117, or up about 0.6 percent on the day. U.S. crude\nfutures hit a four-month high of $100.42. \n\n \n \n COPPER BIGGEST GAINER \n Base metals were the biggest gainers among major\ncommodities, with three-month copper on the London Metal\nExchange rising as much as 4 percent to $8,408 a tonne,\nits loftiest since early May. \n U.S. copper futures' key December contract in New York rose\nmore than 3 percent to above $3.83 a lb, and headed for a weekly\ngain of over 5 percent.\n Lead and zinc surged to their highest levels\nin more than six months and aluminium hit a 5-1\/2 month\nhigh. \n Attention would now turn to top metals consumer China, which\naccounts for 40 percent of copper demand, analysts said. \n \"We would caution that we remain very skeptical of the\nlonger-term implications of this. There is a likelihood that the\nprice gains will not be sustained and prices will fall back\nagain as the demand situation is still very poor,\" said Ross\nStrachan, economist at Capital Economics. \n Gold was on target to extend its winning streak to a fourth\nstraight week. \n Many analysts also expect a correction in gold prices in the\nshort term, but are still optimistic about a market rebound\nbefore the year-end.\n Spot gold rose 0.6 percent to a 6-month high of\n$1,777.51 an ounce. It rose 2 percent on Thursday. \n \"After the move we had, not just yesterday, but over the\nlast two or three weeks I think it would be natural to look for\na period of consolidation,\" said Tom Kendall, an analyst at\nCredit Suisse in London. \n \"But certainly going into the back end of this year, I would\nbe looking for gold to be getting towards at least the $1,850\nlevel.\" \n \n LESS EXCITEMENT IN GRAINS; WHEAT OUTPERFORMS\n Grains markets were comparatively quiet, with corn, soybeans\nand wheat prices having rallied far earlier than most\ncommodities due to the drought that ravaged the U.S. Midwest\nfarm belt and destroyed much harvest potential. \n Wheat outperformed the pack, with the December futures\ncontract in Chicago rising 2 percent to above $9.20 a bushel.\n Soybeans, which hit record highs of nearly $17.90 a bushel\nearlier this month, fell in Friday's session, with November\nfutures a touch lower at below $17.50 as harvest picked up\nfor the crop.\n \"I think we're at reality now where we're at harvest,\" Don\nRoose, president of Iowa-based U.S. Commodities, said, referring\nto soybeans. \n In softs, arabica coffee extended gains to hit a\nseven-week high, as softs were swept up in the commodities rally\nreacting to the Fed's stimulus plan.\n Raw sugar traded above 20 cents for the first time\nthis month, while cocoa futures were also higher, in line with\nriskier assets from shares to commodities.<\/pre>\n