Commodities Wrap 4 September: The Jobs Print Turns the Metals Board Red as Diesel Sets a Record at the Pump

By The Edge Research Team

One economic release turned the whole metals board red, something no session this week had produced. Gold fell 1.44 percent to 4,474.70 dollars an ounce at our 19:31 GMT capture, giving back part of Thursday’s 2.46 percent surge, after United States payrolls for August came in at 162,000 against a 53,000 consensus, per our US jobs report of 4 September, and the dollar and Treasury yields rose on the repricing. The other end of the day’s story was set at the pump: the price of diesel hit a record on Friday as refinery losses from the wars in Ukraine and Iran squeeze supply, per CNBC, with truckers in the United States paying an average of 5.85 dollars a gallon.

Gasoline leads a split energy board

RBOB gasoline led the energy board at plus 2.43 percent, Brent crude added 0.72 percent to 96.21 dollars a barrel and WTI 0.18 percent to 91.46 dollars, while natural gas rose 1.03 percent. The odd row out was ULSD heating oil, the diesel contract, down 1.01 percent at the capture even as the retail fuel set its record, a nearly 60 percent increase over the same period last year, when diesel cost 3.71 dollars a gallon, per the same CNBC report, which puts California diesel at 7.70 dollars. The supply side behind the record is refining capacity, not crude: the wars have shut refineries with about 5 million barrels a day of capacity, per Valero chief operating officer Gary Simmons, speaking on the company’s July earnings call as carried in the same reporting, and about 8 percent of the diesel needed to supply global demand of 28 million barrels a day is disrupted right now, per analyst Andy Lipow of Lipow Oil Associates, quoted there, who counts about 800,000 barrels a day affected by Russia’s diesel export ban, about 1.2 million barrels a day of Strait of Hormuz disruption and a 200,000 barrel a day refinery knocked out in Saudi Arabia. “Diesel is a stealth tax,” Lipow says. The higher cost is passed on through goods delivered by truck and rail.

Payrolls reverse Thursday’s metals rally

Thursday’s metals rally reversed as the strongest payrolls month since March, per the reporting cited in our jobs article, pushed the dollar index up 0.24 percent to 99.146 and the 10 year Treasury yield 1.8 basis points higher to 4.78 percent at the capture. Silver fell 1.53 percent, platinum 0.57 percent and palladium 2.77 percent, ending a run that had carried it 2.74 and then 5.55 percent higher over the prior 2 sessions, per our published wraps of 2 and 3 September. Copper was nearly flat, off 0.12 percent. Bitcoin, which had jumped 5.30 percent on Thursday per our 3 September wrap, fell 2.22 percent to 79,740 dollars, and the CBOE Volatility Index barely moved at 14.29, down 0.21 percent, so the unwind stayed orderly, on our reading.

Wheat extends a hard slide

Wheat fell 2.85 percent to 732.75 cents a bushel, its second consecutive decline of more than 2.8 percent against our published wraps, and leads the agricultural board lower, a day after sugar led it down. The rest of the complex was quieter: corn lost 0.74 percent, soybeans 0.46 percent and coffee 0.83 percent, while cotton and cocoa sat within 0.02 percent of flat at the capture and sugar eased 0.28 percent after Thursday’s 3.80 percent drop.

Snapshot levels at 19:31 GMT on 4 September 2026, after the day’s settlement windows, ranked by change. Changes are measured against the prior session’s settlements as carried in the price feed; these are snapshot levels, not settlement prices.

Same 19:31 GMT capture and basis, ranked by change. All 5 rows are lower; the ranking runs from the smallest decline to the largest.

Same 19:31 GMT capture and basis, ranked by change.

Intraday quotes from the same 19:31 GMT capture. These are snapshot levels of continuously traded or computed instruments, not settlement prices. The Treasury yield change is expressed in basis points because a percentage change on a yield compounds a ratio of ratios.

Why it matters: The metals reversal is the cleanest evidence yet that rates were an important part of the past week’s bid alongside the war: a single strong payrolls print, with hike odds near 60 percent for the Federal Reserve’s 15 and 16 September meeting per the reporting cited in our jobs article, was enough to reverse the metals bid in a day, on our reading. The diesel record tells the opposite story on the products side, where the products complex now carries a tighter war story than crude, up 0.72 percent, through 5 million barrels a day of lost refining capacity, per the figures above, and it lands directly in the inflation data the Fed is about to weigh. The 2 stories meet in next week’s price reports.

Outlook: The US producer price index lands next Thursday and the consumer price index next Friday, per the reporting cited in our jobs article, and a diesel driven inflation surprise would feed the rate repricing that is already pressuring the metals, on our reading. On supply, the disruptions the analysts count, Russia’s export ban, Hormuz flows and the lost refinery capacity, carry no end dates in the reporting cited above, so the products tightness looks set to persist, on our reading. Saudi and Kuwaiti markets reopen Sunday with both the jobs repricing and the diesel record to digest.

Sources: CNBC, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Edge.

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