Commodities Lead the Charge in Broad Based Rally

The dollar index spiked back near the unchanged line about an hour ago, which pulled select commodities lower including crude oil.

April crude oil has been in positive territory all session, but pulled back ~$1/barrel to new session lows of $101.93/barrel on the spike in the dollar index earlier. It’s now back above the $102 level, now up 1.1% at $102.16/barrel.

April natural gas fell quickly after pit trading opened, falling into negative territory and new session lows of $4.116/MMBtu. It’s erased over half of its losses and is now 0.8% higher at $4.20/MMBtu.

Precious metals have shown strength all morning. April gold is currently up 1% at $1430.3/ounce, while May silver is 2.4% higher at $35.91/ounce. Industrial commodity copper is the worst performer in the CRB Index, showing losses of 1.2% at $4.29/lb

A broad-based bid has driven the three major equity averages to gains in excess of 1% in the early going. The buying effort comes amid improved sentiment among market participants, who first began to show a willingness to return to riskier holdings late last week after they had reacted fearfully to headlines out of Japan and the Middle East and North Africa region… Just released, the U.S. Treasury announced that it will begin to wind down its $142 billion Mortgage-Backed Securities Portfolio. Starting this month, the Treasury plans to sell up to $10 billion in agency-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities per month, subject to conditions. The idea of increased debt supply in the market has stirred selling interest among Treasuries, such that the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note is now back to 3.30%. Dow +1.7%, S&P 500 +1.5%, Nasdaq +1.7%