Flat finish for copper

Higher dollar and lower crude price keep prices steady

Copper prices ended near unchnaged mark on Monday, 14 March 2016. The key outside markets were in a bearish posture for commodities today, as the U.S. dollar index was higher and crude oil prices were lower. Global stock markets were mostly higher on Monday, as investor risk appetite in the market place returned.

May copper ended little changed at $2.24 a pound.

The dollar index ended higher by 0.4% on Monday.

Crude oil prices fell at Nymex on Monday, 14 March 2016 giving up half of last week's gains, after OPEC left its estimate on global oil demand growth unchanged. A drop in oil prices once again hit energy companies, while investors remained skittish ahead of a series of central-bank meetings, including the Federal Reserve.

Oil prices fell 3.4% to settle at $37.18 a barrel at Nymex on Monday.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries left its estimate on global oil demand growth for this year unchanged. World oil demand is expected to rise by 1.25 million barrels a day in 2016 to average 94.23 million barrels a day, according to OPEC's monthly oil report. OPEC also left its non-OPEC oil supply forecast for this year unchanged from its previous report, predicting a fall of 0.7 million barrels a day to an average of 56.39 million barrels a day. OPEC crude output, meanwhile, edged down by 175,000 barrels a day to average 32.28 million barrels a day in February, though output increased from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

There was no economic data of note released today. Tomorrow's economic data includes February Retail Sales (consensus -0.1%), February PPI (consensus -0.2%), and March Empire Manufacturing (consensus -9.5) all crossing the wires at 8:30 ET. Meanwhile, Business Inventories for January (consensus +0.0%) and the NAHB Housing Market Index for March (consensus 59.0) will be released at 10:00 ET. The day's data will be capped off with the Net Long-Term TIC Flows for January at 16:00 ET.

Arguably the most important data point of the week will be the U.S. Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting that begins Tuesday and ends Wednesday afternoon with a statement and a press conference from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. No changes in U.S. monetary policy are expected at this meeting, but as always traders and investors will be closing parsing the FOMC statement for clues on Fed policy moves in the coming weeks or months. The market place believes there is about a 50-50 chance the Fed will raise U.S. interest rates at its June meeting.

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