The Glencore share price is hovering near its highest level since March 2012 as investors focus on the commodities sector. The GLEN stock is trading at 358p, bringing its total year-to-date gains to more than 50%. This makes it the best performing mining stock in the FTSE 100 this year.
Coal demand rising
Glencore is one of the biggest coal miners in the world. The company mines and sells coals in Australia, Africa, and South America. It supplies the commodity to power companies from around the world with its biggest buyers being in China.
The company has benefited substantially from the recent trends in coal prices. The price has surged to an all-time high as many countries are having an energy crisis. For example, power plants in India are dangerously running out of coal, which will likely push prices higher.
As I wrote last week, Glencore will benefit from these trends because it has no exposure to iron ore, a metal whose price has struggled lately.
Meanwhile, the company will likely benefit from the rising oil prices. The company is one of the biggest oil traders in the world. On average, it sells more than 6 million barrels of oil every day.
Therefore, the performance of the energy market means that it will help to offset the relatively weak metals market. Recently, the prices of copper and other metals has gone nowhere.
Glencore share price forecast
The daily chart shows that the Glencore share price has been in a major bullish trend in the past few weeks. Along the way, the stock has managed to move above the key resistance level at $340, which was an important resistance level.
The stock had struggled moving above this level several times before. It also moved comfortably above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has moved close to the overbought level. Therefore, the shares will likely maintain the bullish trend as bulls target the next key resistance at 400p This view will be invalidated if the price drops below 340p.
