Freight found a floor on Friday. Tanker freight rose 0.99 percent to 676.50 dollars in the site market tables, a small daily gain after a weekly fall of 30.18 percent that tracked the unwinding Hormuz premium in crude. Dry bulk freight rose 1.69 percent to 13.24 dollars and is up 8.61 percent on the week, the firmest weekly print in the commodity tables.
US natural gas closed at 3.00 dollars per million British thermal units, up 1.73 percent on the day and 3.45 percent on the week, the firmest energy line in the tables as winter demand approaches. Precious metals held their weekly gains into the close: gold futures ended at 4,074.9 dollars an ounce, down 0.94 percent on the day but up 4.51 percent on the week, and silver ended at 51.80 dollars, down 0.82 percent on the day and up 5.51 percent on the week.
Wheat slipped 1.34 percent to 591.2 cents a bushel on Friday and is down 2.03 percent on the week, with slow export demand the standing headwind four days before USDA’s November WASDE and Crop Production reports on November 10. Corn and soybeans both rose modestly on the day on the export sales reported in a separate story today.
On sanctions, the State Department’s November 5 Cuba action, reported by gCaptain on Friday, identified five Cuban flagged vessels as blocked property, the crude tankers Esperanza and Lourdes, the products tankers Gloria C and Maria Cristina and the LPG carrier Emilia, and opened the door to sanctions on foreign companies operating in Cuba’s marine industry. The Treasury determination behind the marine sector exposure was covered on this site on November 5, and three of the five vessels were already listed under earlier Venezuela related sanctions, with Emilia and Gloria C newly added.