WA stocks down on soft commodity prices

Soft commodity prices have driven the market capitalisation of Western Australia's listed companies lower, bringing recent gains to an end.

Deloitte's WA Index fell 1.6 per cent lower in March to close the month at $151.2 billion.

Most commodity prices surveyed by Deloitte fell during March, led by a 6.1 per cent fall in copper price and a 6.7 per cent fall in zinc on the back of poor Chinese macroeconomic data.

Gold and silver each posted modest falls but nickel prices rose by 8 per cent in March to achieve their highest price for the year.

Deloitte WA clients and markets partner Tim Richards said the ongoing volatility in commodity prices posed challenges for both miners and mining services companies.

"The long term outlook remains positive for the WA economy but we are still in for a volatile period over the next nine months," he said.

Liquefied Natural Gas was among the better index performers during March, posting a 90 per cent increase in market capitalisation to jump from 89th to 57th on the list.

Peninsula Energy posted a 41 per cent increase in market capitalisation to jump from 112th to 86th, while Yowie Group moved into the top 100 on a 60 per cent market capitalisation increase.

Doray Minerals, Brockman Mining and RCR Tomlinson each posted modest falls.