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Oil and Nat Gas Shed Over 4% While Copper Flips to the Board's Only Green Light

Wednesday, September 30, 2026 · Data through Tuesday's close, September 29, 2026

With Brad Hoppmann

Bar color is the Golden Thread read: green means the CCI is rising and above its 14-day average (strong), red means falling and below its 14-day average (weak), yellow means mixed. Bar length and Posture (0-100, 50 is neutral) show where the CCI sits today. Dollar and commodity prices are ETF proxy closes for Tuesday, September 29, 2026; Nasdaq and S&P 500 are native index levels, with their trend read from QQQ and SPY. Daily % is close to close versus Monday.

The split is lopsided: one green (copper), three reds (crude, nat gas, platinum), and eight yellows. The dollar's own trend reads mixed, but its price is what drives the Score, and its price just made a new high.

0 / 100

THEY'VE GONE TO PLAID

The Supercycle Score is the inverse of the dollar.

The dollar did the thing the Score was built to catch. UUP closed Tuesday at $28.75, a nickel above Monday and the highest close of the past 52 weeks. That puts the dollar at 100% of its one-year range, and the Score goes right back to zero, down from 2 on Monday. On this model, zero is as heavy a headwind as it gets for anything priced in dollars.

Here is the part worth slowing down for. The metals did not fall with it. Gold rose 1.32% to $382.89 and silver rose 0.96% to $55.48, one day after their worst session in weeks. Both moved from RED to YELLOW. Their CCI readings are still deeply negative, -178.3 for gold and -171.2 for silver, but both turned up sharply from Monday's lows. That is the Golden Thread doing its job: it flags the turn off a washed-out base before the level itself looks healthy. Palladium, corn and soybeans made the same RED-to-YELLOW move.

Copper is the one that crossed the line. It gained 0.63% to $39.93, and its CCI rose to -4.0, above both Monday's reading and its own 14-day average. That makes copper the only confirmed GREEN on the board. The Posture is only 49, dead neutral, so this is a turn, not a run. But it is a real turn.

Energy went the other way. Crude oil fell 4.44% to $143.35 and nat gas fell 4.08% to $10.35. Both flipped to RED. On the news side, the US ordered another release from its emergency oil reserves and Middle East crude exports are recovering toward prewar levels. Even so, Brent is still on track for a gain of roughly 14% for September. A single hard day inside a strong month is exactly the kind of shakeout the Turtles were trained not to flinch at. The trend gauge says respect the red for now; the monthly chart says don't write the obituary.

So what do we watch? A dollar at a fresh high with the metals refusing to follow it lower is a divergence. It does not mean the dollar has rolled over. It means some of the selling pressure in gold and silver may be spent. The confirmation we want is simple: the metals turning GREEN while the dollar stops printing new highs.

Tuesday's Treasury close had the 2-year at 4.89%, the 10-year at 5.26% and the 30-year at 5.59%, a 2s10s spread of a positive 37 basis points. The 10-year is up 30 basis points since last Tuesday's 4.96%, a fast climb for the long end. Rising yields raise the cost of holding metals that pay no interest, which is part of why Monday hit gold so hard. Tuesday's bounce came with the 10-year still edging higher, which makes it more interesting, not less.

The latest Commitment of Traders report still covers the week ending Tuesday, September 22. Large speculators held a net long of 10,330 contracts in US Dollar Index futures, down slightly from 10,593, and trimmed gold net length to roughly 225,853 contracts from about 230,338. The next report is due Friday, October 2, and will cover the week ending Tuesday, September 29, the window that includes Monday's metals rout. On the calendar, the next scheduled dollar-movers are the September CPI report on October 14 and the Fed's rate decision on October 27-28.

Up in Titusville, the city has big ideas for the marina district by Sand Point Park. Shops, a park, something like a smaller Cocoa Village where folks would actually want to spend a Saturday. The trouble is the paperwork. The land belongs to the state, the lease traces back to 1963, and it says, in so many words, you can run the boat slips, the fuel dock and the pump-out, and that's it. No new buildings that don't need water under them. Change the use, and you need Tallahassee's written permission first.

My granddad's generation signed that kind of deal when a lease was a handshake with a few pages attached, back when the rockets going up across the river were the newest thing in Brevard County. Sixty-some years later the town has grown up around it, and the paper hasn't moved an inch. Nobody's fighting about whether the waterfront is worth more. Everybody agrees on that. They're just waiting on the landlord.

That's about where the metals sit this morning. Gold and silver turned up on the day, copper actually got its green light, and the plans look good on paper. But the dollar holds the lease, and on Tuesday it just renewed at a new high. Coke-TV will call the metals bounce a comeback. Pepsi-TV will call the dollar high a lock. Neither one will mention that a good plan and a signed permission slip are two different pieces of paper.

Brad Hoppmann

Supercycle Trader

25-year financial-publishing veteran

Footnote: the Supercycle Score measures where the dollar (UUP) closes inside its 52-week closing range, $26.47 (January 27, 2026) to $28.75 (September 29, 2026). Tuesday's close of $28.75 sits at 100% of that range, a fresh 52-week high, so the Score reads 0. The lower the Score, the stronger the dollar headwind for commodities.

Data sources: dollar and commodity board via ETF proxies, Nasdaq and S&P 500 native index levels, and Treasury curve data all via Financial Modeling Prep, consistent with this letter's established fallback. CCI(20) and Posture computed from UUP, GLD, SLV, CPER, USO, UNG, CORN, SOYB, PALL, PPLT, QQQ and SPY daily price history. CFTC Commitment of Traders positioning, week ending September 22, 2026. Oil news context via Bloomberg and Trading Economics reports of September 29, 2026. Supercycle Score is the inverse of the US dollar (UUP 52-week range). Data reflects the Tuesday, September 29, 2026 close.

Educational publication. The Daily Dashboard is for informational purposes only and does not constitute individualized investment advice. Trading commodities, futures and related instruments involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.