Oil drags commodities lower, but gold shines

It was a poor start to the year for commodities with the prices of energy, industrial metals and agricultural commodities all falling owing to persistent concerns about Chinese demand and continued oversupply, especially of oil. Indeed, the Bloomberg commodity index hit its lowest level since at least 1991. However, prices did rebound a little in the second half of the month, led by hopes of a deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut oil output. Meanwhile, the prices of gold and silver benefitted from the prevailing uncertainty.