Bespoke's Commodity Snapshot -- Gold's Thinning Range

Below is an updated look at the year-to-date performance of ten major commodities.  There have been some big winners and big losers, and the rest are pretty much flat for the year.  Wheat and corn have been the standouts to the upside, with gains of 26.63% and 40.55%, respectively.  Breakfast beverages have been the big losers, with orange juice down 31.95% and coffee down 27.53%.  The precious metals (gold, silver, platinum) are all up slightly year to date, while oil and natural gas are down roughly 6%.

We've also run the ten commodities through our trading range charts.  In each chart below, the green shading represents between two standard deviations above and below the commodity's 50-day moving average.

The chart that stands out the most to us is gold.  As you can see, gold's trading range has been thinning for a year now, meaning the metal has become less and less volatile.  Since May, gold has essentially traded in a range between $1,550 and $1,640.  When we see a thinning range like this, it tells us that gold is likely going to see a big break in either direction soon.