Crude oil remains weak in Asian session Monday as weaker-than-expected US sentiment hurt risk appetite and weighed on stock market. The front-month WTI futures extend losses to 80.75.

US data released last week were mixed but they indicated uncertainty in growth outlook in the world's largest economy. Retail sales beat market expectations and rose +0.3% m/m in February. Excluding autos, the reading soared to +0.8% during the month, compared with consensus of a +0.1% increase. However, University of Michigan confidence surprisingly slid to 72.5 in March from 73.6 a month ago. The market had anticipated an improvement to 73.9.

Divergence in stock performance is seen today. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index changes little as gains in consumer stocks are being offset by losses in commodity shares.

Gold price stabilizes after plunging -2.95% last week. The benchmark contract manages to trade above 1100 today. Recovery in the precious metal is driven by the euro, which stays near a 4-week high against the dollar and a 5-week high against the yen as concerns over Greece's deficit crisis eases.

The FOMC will be meeting tomorrow on monetary policy. While it's widely expected that to see the policy rate unchanged at 0-0.25%, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may talk about plans on how long the low rate policy will stay. On Wednesday's BOJ meeting, policymakers may unveil further stimulus measures to increase liquidity The BOE will also release minutes for March's meeting on Wednesday. We expect the decision to keep rates and the QE program unchanged was unanimous. There will not be significant change to BOE's policy outlook.

Commitments of Traders:

Crude Oil: Net speculative long positions exceeded 100 K contracts for the first time in 7 weeks. Market sentiment improved in recent weeks and pushed commodity prices higher. Oil price's trading range has shifted upward and stably anchored above 80. At the same time, flattening in forward curve signals market expectation of tighter demand/supply outlook

Natural Gas: Delinking of natural gas and oil prices remains. While gas price continued to go south, net speculative short positions increased further. Weakness in gas market has evolved to be a supply issue, rather than one driven by demand

Gold: Net speculative long positions increased for the 4th week although gold price remained range-bounded. While bounces above 1100 indicates gold have managed to hold above this week. the metal's movement in the near-term should remain erratic as driven conflicting factors from the macroeconomic environment

Silver: Net longs in silver soared to 35.2K contracts, in tandem with price rally. As we noted in the weekly report, silver has underperformed others in the precious metal complex in recent months. Silver's heavy exposure in industrial applications may drive investors away should Chins speed up monetary tightening

Platinum: Net longs rose modestly to 21.5Kcontracts. Platinum, together with palladium, outperformed gold and silver as they rallied despite USD's strength. Apart from turnaround in fundamentals, we believe the well-received US-listed ETFs have helped a lot