The prices of oil, gold and silver took a nosedive on Thursday, over worries about the health of the global economy.
It was the biggest drop in the cost of raw materials in almost two years, amid a slew of negative economic data.
Brent crude lost around $7, or 6pc, to settle at $113.82 per barrel in London, just a few weeks after warnings that consistently high prices would strangle global growth.
Myrto Sokou, of Sucden Financial, put the reason for this down to "renewed concerns about oil demand in China and the US, while the weak US dollar failed to provide some support to the market".
Prices will take a while to feed through to motorists, but drivers will start to see the price of petrol at the pump reduce if the fall is sustained.
Silver has been the biggest faller in recent days. Now just below $38 per ounce, it has dropped by 20pc this week. Only last month it was at a 31-year high of almost $50 an ounce.
Neither was gold immune from the sell-off, dropping 2.1pc to $1,485.24 an ounce, while platinum dropped 3.2pc to $1,764.80 an ounce.
There have been a series of warnings in recent weeks from experts and City analysts that this year's spikes in commodity prices are not supported by fundamentals of supply and demand.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs warned its clients to "sell oil, cotton, copper, soybeans and platinum" in a surprise note last month.
"We now recommend an underweight allocation to commodities on a three-to-six-month horizon," it said.
Another alarm bell was heard from the International Energy Agency, which cautioned that it had begun to see the first signs of a downturn in demand. This came after oil prices hit their highest levels since before the financial crisis - hovering around $120 per barrel.
"Preliminary January and February data suggest that high prices are already starting to dent demand growth," the energy watchdog said.
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