05 February 2012 at 12:30

Heavily overweight rating for base, precious metals, slightly overweight to agriculture, underweight to energy: Barclays

LONDON (Commodity Online): In monthly commodity rankings, Barclays Capital gave a heavily overweight rating to the base- and precious-metals sectors, slightly overweight to agriculture and underweight to energy.

“Better-than-expected economic data have helped to ease concerns over the outlook for global growth,” Barclays added.

“The improvement in manufacturing PMIs (Purchasing Managers Indexes) in particular bodes well for metals demand.”

Analysts rank individual commodities each month, with a five representing “a very strong market” and a one for “a very weak market.”

Barclays did not assign any fives for February but listed several metals among the fours, including aluminum, copper, lead, Gold and silver. Platinum and Palladium were assigned threes