Crude oil price regained 59 level in US session yesterday as driven by rebounds in stock markets and geopolitical tension in Nigeria. The June contract, which will expire today, surged 4.8% to settle at 59.03 while the more active July contract gained 4.4% to close at 59.59.

Boost from Indian stocks, encouraging housing data, optimistic and better-than-expected earnings report once again reignited investors' confidence and sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index 3% higher Monday.

India's benchmark Sensitive Index jumped 17% after the election victory of Prime Minister Monmohan Singh's party as the market anticipated increase in infrastructure by the Government will boost steel the nation's economy which may weaken to 6%, the weakness in 6 years in the fiscal year beginning April 1. Growth from emerging economies is view as the locomotive of recovery from current recession.

In the US, NAHB housing market index improved to 6-month high of 16 in May from 14 in the previous month, indicating rise in homebuilders' confidence. Lowe's Co, the second biggest home improvement chain in the US reported that for the 3 months ended May 1, earnings dropped almost 22% to $476M from the same period last year. Although it's a huge decline, it came in better than analysts' forecast.

Despite the rally Monday, more evidence of recovery, rather than signs of stabilization, will be needed to push the markets higher (both for stocks and energies) in coming weeks.

The Nigerian militant attack has shown no signs of easing. After claiming to have blown up 2 oil and gas pipelines over the weekend, the MEND threatened to prevent crude oil and gas shipments from key ports. Currently Nigeria production is around 1.7-1.8M bpd.

Gold price dropped 1% to close at 921.7 yesterday and, while long-term bullish, the precious metal should move up choppily in the near term due to range-bound trading in the dollar and slowdown in investment demands.

Platinum price recovered part of the slide in the previous week after Johnson Matthey released its 2009 platinum report which anticipated supply and demand in platinum market will be in balance in 2009. On the demand side, automotive demand will remain weak but will recover in advance of auto production while industrial demand should fall further from 2008 level. However, these weaknesses will be partly offset by strong jewelry demand and rising investment demand though the outlook for the latter is hard to predict. Concerning supply, 'one-off' disruption such as energy outage may occur again but there's inherent growth capacity from existing operations and more mines are coming on stream. The agency forecast platinum to trade between 950-1350 this year