Weekly commodity report: Cotton, turmeric prices fall; sugar, coriander rise

KOLKATA: The agri commodity basket witnessed a lot of movement this week. While commodities like cotton, turmeric, soybean and mustard saw a decline in prices due to higher arrivals, there was upward movement in guar complex, sugar, coriander and cardamom. The edible oil counter remained flat due to high supplies and an increase in crushing activities.

In the non agri-commodity space uncertainty continued for gold prices. Base metals traded lower as investors await more clarity on Trump's infrastructure plan. US housing data were a little supportive as pending home sales jumped 5.5% in February, the most since April 2010. Further growth data will be awaited as the third estimate of US fourth quarter GDP is expected to show economy growing at a 2.0% annualised rate.

Oil prices traded flat as a smaller than expected increase in US inventories helped. Crude inventories rose 867,000 barrels to fresh record high against expectations for increase of 1.4 million barrels.

"There is lot of uncertainty around gold prices. Brexit, French Elections and investment flows in the SPDR gold trust are push factors surrounding gold prices," said Prathamesh Mallya, chief analyst, Non Agri-Commodities & Currencies, Angel Broking.

Dollar index on the other hand is hovering around the crucial 100 mark. Further direction can be gauged depending on how the non-farm payrolls data show in the coming week.

This week international gold prices have corrected by around 1.8% while MCX gold prices have corrected by same margin in the same time frame. Gold prices might see near term correction towards $1233 while MCX gold prices have room to fall towards Rs 28000 per 10 gm mark.