Palladium prices rose on Thursday, after posting a record close yesterday, despite the US dollar's rebound against most of its rivals.

Several global mining companies forecast a supply shortage of some main industrial metals, especially nickel, palladium and platinum.

Analysts also forecast strong demand for palladium from automakers that use the metal in manufacturing environmental-friendly car components.

Following expectations of the global economic recovery, most notably in the US and Chinese economies, metals such as copper and palladium will witness a strong demand and prices will be lifted this year.

The dollar index rose against a basket of currencies by 0.1% to 91.2 points as of 13:48 GMT, after it hit a high of 91.2 points and a low of 91 points.

Palladium June futures rose 0.1% to $2,882 an ounce as of 13:49 GMT, with a high of $2,894 and a low of $2,828.

US stock indices opened lower on Thursday, despite the release of strong economic data that showed a drop in the US unemployment claims to pre-pandemic levels.

The US Department of Labor revealed that the number of initial unemployment claims fell to 547K last week, the lowest reading since March 2020, better than forecasts of 607K.

This comes amid anticipation of the results of major companies, led by Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Facebook, Amazon and Alphabet.

As for stocks, Dow Jones fell 0.3% or 115 points to 34,022 as of 14:11 GMT, Nasdaq fell 0.1% or 7 points to 13,942, and S&P 500 fell 0.1% or 6 points to 4,167.

Gold prices fell on Thursday, and pulled back from a 2-month high on profit-taking, and after the US T-bond yields rebounded.

Gold prices fell 0.6% to $1,783.57 an ounce, after opening at $1,793.75, and hit a high of $1,797.83

Gold closed higher by 0.8% yesterday, in the second straight daily gain, thanks to strong safe haven demand.

The 10-year US treasury yields rose 1% today, and rebounded from a 1-week low of 1.531%, which lowers gold attractiveness.

These developments in the US bond market came due to market's bets on rising US inflation, despite of the Federal Reserve successive assurances that the recent prices hike is temporary.

Gold stocks at the SPDR ETF remained unchanged yesterday, with a total at 1,021.70 metric tonnes.

Oil prices fell on Thursday, to head for the third straight daily loss, and hit a 1-week low on demand concerns in India and Japan, in addition to unexpected build in the US crude inventories.

US crude fell 0.8% to a 1-week low of $60.64 a barrel, after opening at $61.11, and hit a high at $61.24, and Brent crude fell 0.75% to the lowest since April 18 at $64.60 a barrel, after opening at $65.09, and hit a high of $65.22.

US crude lost 2.2% yesterday, and Brent crude futures fell 1.8% and posted the second consecutive daily loss, due to concerns over the Asian demand.

The Indian health authorities announced on Wednesday the highest daily death toll from Covid-19, amid a huge crisis of oxygen shortage.

To mitigate these developments, the Indian authorities may resort to tightening the lockdown, which would weigh down on fuel consumption in the third largest oil consumer in Asia, which forced refiners to reduce operations.

While the Japanese Radio and Television Corporation said that the government is considering imposing a state of emergency in Tokyo and Osaka due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases.

The Energy Information Administration reported yesterday that the US crude inventories rose 600K barrels to 493 million barrels during the week ending April 16, while analysts forecasts a drop by 3.7 million barrels.

The US production remained unchanged last week, with a total of 11 million barrels per day.