This Morning

In New York, NYMEX crude oil futures were down around 8% early this morning while COMEX copper futures traded as low as $2.284/lb. as gold futures rose above $1,715 per troy ounce. The SHFE in China is closed for the holiday while in London most of the base metals were headed lower this morning, with LME 3-mo. copper and aluminum trading around $5,075/mt and $1,475/mt, respectively. As for equities. the major European exchanges started the week in negative territory this morning as the euro eased to $1.094 while the British pound was buying $1.242.