It was a very rough day in the commodity markets on Tuesday, as apart from the oil complex, most everything else got hit hard. Gold finished down by
almost $10 an ounce and was off by roughly $15 an ounce at one point before ending the day at $1268. Silver crashed through the August 10 support low of $16.09, although it managed to recover above that mark by the close. But the selling
was really brutal in the base metals complex, particularly in copper and nickel. Copper had its steepest one-day decline in almost 2 years (off some 4.5%), while nickel lost roughly 2 1/2% and crashed through the $11,000 mark in the
process. The weakness in the base complex hurt both platinum and palladium as well, with the former touching a 2 1/2 month low of $979.60. Palladium finished at $977, down $14/ounce and is now off roughly $50 from its November 29 high of $1024.
