Commodities take a breather as Crimea tensions ease, Buy signal in Gold, Sell Oil

Commodity complex took a breather on Monday and early Tuesday trading as Crimean vote to rejoin Russian federation went off peacefully and caused safe haven demand for gold to wane while Oil that was buoyant on geo-political worries also eased falling into sell territory on an intra day basis.

Commodity prices especially gold prices dipped in Asia on Tuesday as the impact of Western sanctions on Russia over the annexation of the Crimean region of the Ukraine were seen as mild and a sign that tensions remain in check

US Gold futures for April delivery has fallen from a high of $1391 to $1361.1 in electronic trading on Tuesday while US WTI crude oil has fallen to $97.95 per barrel.

"On Gold charts, an RSI of 61.70 is quite bullish for godl and MACD is slightly in positive territory. But price are still comfortably above the 200 day moving average of $1324.56 indicating markets have only taken a breather and watching further developments to unfold. Gold could rebound again after hitting $1350 levels," accorinding to Sreekumar Raghavan, Chief Strategist at Commodity Online Group.

WTI crude oil on the ohter hand is trading below 200 day EMA of $98.48 a barrel and RSI at 40.27 indicates the market is still bearish.

Meanwhile, Crimea did not have a bearish impact on Natural gas futures as it shot up on Monday after updated weather forecasting models called for a cold snap to sweep across the U.S. in the coming days and hike demand for heating in its wake.Natural gas prices shoot up on chilly spring forecast
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, natural gas futures for delivery in April traded at $4.554 per million British thermal units during U.S. trading, up 2.90%. The commodity hit session high of $4.585 and a low of $4.484.

Mixed trends were seen in dollar index on global developments. US Copper futures for May delivery is trading slightly positive at $2.98 after closing at $2.95 a pound on Monday although the underlying sentiments are bearish on China data.

Falling Gold/Copper ratio raises concerns about global economic growth

The falling Gold/Copper ratio indicates that global economy may not be growing as expected, according to a weekly report from ETF Securities Ltd.

Weaker than expected US and China ecnomic data and the growing Russia-Ukraine crisis apear to have changed investor riks perceptions, ETFS said.

More recently a China corporate bond default has raised concerns about a possible unwinding of copper collateralised financing deals. The combination of these factors has driven the copper/gold ratio sharply lower. Copper/gold ratio is sometimes viewed as a leading global economic indicator.

The question now is whether continued strong
consensus global growth forecasts are now going to need to be scaled back, ETFS said.

The present scenario seems to be vastly different from the beginning of 2014 when higher stock prices, strong economic growth, higher bond yields, a stronger dolar and lower gold rices were some of the key consensus expectations.