I. Precious Metals
Gold

The price of gold turned higher on Friday, hovering below the prior session's seven-week top as the U.S. dollar weakened and U.S. Treasury yields came off their highs, with the metal on track for a third straight weekly gain.
The gold price has risen 6.5 percent since a mid-December low and on Thursday reached its highest level since Nov. 23, after President-elect Donald Trump failed to elaborate on his plans to cut taxes and boost infrastructure spending. There's clearly plenty of new long positioning that has come into the market and at current price levels there's room to take profit. Investors were looking ahead to Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20, when they will again be looking for detail on his plans for the U.S. Economy. Gold is expected to rise further ahead of more clues on U.S. economic policy coming out.
Gold price has risen almost 7 percent after hitting a 10-1/2-month low on December 15. But the key mark of 1,200 would post heavy resistance, judging from yesterday’s movement. On news front, the dollar is expected to rebound on signs of Trump’s economic policy pushing forward. Gold turned lower after touching the 100-week moving average of $1,200, a key resistance on bullion’s upside momentum.

Silver

Spot silver was up 0.02 percent at $16.80 an ounce, having hit its highest level in almost a month at $16.98 in the previous session. The metal bottomed up before testing previous resistance at $16.60. It closed the session above $16.8, and remains steam with strong support at the 50-day moving average. Silver is kept under heavy resistance within the range from $16.9 to $17.0 without technical support for a breakthrough in near term. It is more likely to turn lower as the 50-day moving average moves down, and the MACD index weakens. Investors shall keep an eye on its support at $16.6.

II. Commodities
Crude Oil

Oil prices fell on Friday on lingering doubts over the extent of OPEC cuts, with sentiment worsened by concerns over the economic health of the world's second-largest oil consumer, China, after it reported the steepest falls in overall exports since 2009. U.S. crude futures closed at 52.37 a barrel, ending the week 3 percent lower. On the supply side, there was some market support from top crude exporter Saudi Arabia, which said that its output had fallen below 10 million bpd to levels last seen in February 2015 and that it expects to make even deeper cuts next month. However, hard evidence of export reductions has yet to emerge, two weeks into the month in which the cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers, such as Russia, were supposed to start. Compliance won't be 100 percent as it never is. An overall rate of 50 percent to 60 percent would be good enough, based on past compliance levels. EIA data and U.S. government policies may unwind all the production cuts Saudi Arabia and others are planning. Oil prices are expected to move down further to $51.80 if Trump’s speech due on Jan. 20 would provide tailwinds to the dollar.

Copper

Copper hit a five-week high on Friday on optimism about metals demand following strong economic data from top metals consumer China and the United States. Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange surged to an intraday peak of $5,912 a tonne, the highest since Dec. 7. At the close it was bid up 1.2 percent at $5,909, having failed to trade in closing open outcry activity. Copper gained over 5 percent on the week, the biggest weekly rise since late November. Underlining strong demand was data on Friday showing China shipped in a record 4.95 million tonnes of copper in 2016, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, with December imports up almost 30 percent from the previous month. Aggregate financing in December was very strong, so that will have an impact because there's a two-month lag in its effect on the economy.

Soybean

U.S. soybean futures rose on Friday on follow-through buying after the surge on Thursday, traders said. Signs of persistently strong export demand for U.S. supplies helped turn soybeans higher. Soymeal led soybeans higher, up 1.5 percent during the session to the peak since August, on concerns that forecasts for more rain in Argentina could limit the size of the soybean crop in the worlds top soymeal exporter. Soyoil pulled back on swap trade of longing soymeal/shoring soyoil, traders said. The U.S. Agriculture Department said early Friday that private exporters reported the sale of 132,000 tonnes of soybeans for delivery to unknown destinations. It was the first flash sale of U.S. soybeans since Dec. 21. Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures for March delivery settled up 6 cents at $10.46-1/4 a bushel. CBOT March soymeal was up 6 cents at $333.9 a tonne. CBOT March soyoil firmed 0.47 cents at 35.6 cents. For the week, soybean, soymeal and soyoil rose 5.0 percent, 7.1 percent and 3.1 percent respectively. Traded volumes of soybean, soymeal and soyoil were expected to stood at 254,020 lots, 122,444 lots, and 103,562 lots respectively.

Dealing Room, ICBC Beijing Branch
                          Huang Han

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