Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Gold is Setting the Stage for Another Flat Summer / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Donald_W_Dony
Though Gold remains in a stable long-term up trend, there is some weakness building over the 2-3 weeks. Is this the beginning of another flat summer season? Technical evidence seems to be pointing in that direction.
Gold has been trading since mid-2006 in a series of gradual ladder steps upward. Each major low has progressed higher or at least equal to the last step. This is the normal pattern for a developing up trend. In the case of the last low in early March 2007 (see Chart 1)
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Saturday, May 19, 2007
Gold Spooked by IMF Sales Speculation - Gold Stock Valuations 4 / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: Zeal_LLC
This week the International Monetary Fund, which has long commanded the world's third largest official holding of gold bullion, once again made some noise about selling 400 tonnes of its gold. Such a sale would represent about an eighth of the IMF's total holdings, and as usual such tidings spooked the markets.
So far in its secular bull, gold has climbed 181% higher since April 2001. Interestingly, the IMF has been periodically announcing that it is considering gold bullion sales over the majority of this entire six-year span. The recurring threat of IMF gold sales is just another brick in the great wall of worries that gold has handily overcome.
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Friday, May 18, 2007
Gold Breaks Major Support Levels, So That's It for Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
"...Golly – what a great market to short! And isn't it funny to think that gold just recorded fresh all-time highs against the world's major currencies..."
SO THAT'S IT in gold then. The bull market that peaked in May 2006 finally gave up the ghost this week.
At least, that's what Wall Street is saying. No wonder private investors are selling out, too.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Gold Immune to Debasement, Default, and Devaluation - The Golden Thorn in the Flesh - Part 2 / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Professor_Emeritus
Concluding Part of a Series of Two (The Dynamics of Deflation - The Golden Thorn in the Flesh - Part 1)
The topsy-turvy world of central bank gold sales
Here is a passage from my 1998 book entitled Gold and Interest that will soon be released as an e-book.
As these pages are written (late 1997), chrysophobes make much of the weak dollar-price of gold and of the fact that more central banks, including the Swiss, join the company of those that have been dumping gold on the market. In addition, self-styled experts on deflation submit that, while under an inflationary spiral gold hoards may have been a reasonable investment, gold is the worst possible place to be under a deflationary spiral.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Bubbling Metals : Zinc, Copper, Aluminium, Uranium Silver and Gold / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: Aden_Forecast
The metals have been on a tear. The base metals have been rising sharply with several hitting new highs. Whether it's nickel, lead, copper, zinc or aluminum, they've all risen sharply while platinum soared to record highs. And it's not just the metals, the entire gold universe has been hot. Uranium continues to defy gravity as it jumped well above $100, while crude oil sits above the $60 level.
The stock market has been hot too. It's been getting most of the publicity as it keeps hitting record highs. And while the stock market is indeed bullish, over the past eight years the Dow Industrials is still down 58% compared to gold. So the percentage gains have simply been better in gold and the other metals.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Is Salter Duck Water Power The Uranium Banana Skin? / Commodities / Uranium
By: Bob_Kirtley
Recently, we wrote an article on the possible threats to the uranium bull market and nuclear power in general. In this article we will explore what we believe is the biggest single threat to the long term position of nuclear power with uranium as a fuel.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The London Gold Pool Revisited! / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mario_Innecco
Back in the 1960s when the dollar was still fixed to gold at a rate of $35 per troy ounce the United States Treasury and the other financial “policy makers” of the time were having more and more difficulty in maintainig this fixed rate of $35 in the London and European foreign exchange markets.
From 1933 to 1975 gold could not be traded in the United States so there was no official market in New York. The major reason for this difficulty in keeping gold pegged at $35 per troy ounce was that the U.S. government was printing dollars with no corresponding increase in its gold reserves and as a result the participants in the market started exchanging these inflated dollars for real thing!
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Wednesday, May 16, 2007
GOLD THOUGHTS - The core CPI is the “WMD” of the Federal Reserve's inflation commitment / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Ned_W_Schmidt
Only the truly deluded believe that the core consumer price index released for the U.S. on Tuesday has any true meaning. Only those trying to rationalize the continuation of the hedge fund bubble in U.S. financial markets give it any consideration. The core CPI is the “WMD” of the Federal Reserve's inflation commitment. According to one of the pseudo gurus on CNBC that day, 40% of core CPI is the nonsensical housing measure. Did you buy or rent a house in the past month?Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Silver Market: May 2006 verses May 2007 / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Bob_Kirtley
Last May 2006, we saw the “sell in May and go away” crowd in action and wondered if we would see a repeat of this sell off in 2007. The truth is that we do not know what the herd will do but we do have a couple of observations that show that Silver is in a vastly different position this year to last year.
Taking a look at the chart for the time frame in question we can see a number of differences between May 2006 and May 2007.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
GOLD Analysis : May 2006 verses May 2007 / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Bob_Kirtley
In May 2006 we saw the “sell in May and go away” strategy in action and wondered if we are to get the same again. The truth is that we do not know but we do have a couple of observations that we thought were worthy of your attention .
If we take a look at the chart for the period concerned we can see a number of differences between May 2006 and May 2007.
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Gold Market Update - COT Report Bearish / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Clive_Maund
In the last update, published on or after 16th April, we expected gold to drop back from the $690 area due to the bearish COT structure, and that is what has happened. The latest COTs are not good news for bulls, with the Commercial shorts still at a high level - high enough to preclude a significant advance in the near future, and to maintain the risk of a substantial decline.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Silver Market Update - Double Top? / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Clive_Maund
The silver chart should strike fear into the hearts of silver investors. There is no Ascending Triangle on the chart (from last May's highs), as some claim, instead the pattern is looking more and more like a large Double Top, with the second peak taking the form of a Head-and-Shoulders top.
Before anyone graciously goes to the trouble of enlightening the writer about the wonderful fundamentals for silver, let me say this - don't bother, I know about them - and so does the market, that's the trouble, they may already be fully discounted by the market.
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Sunday, May 13, 2007
Weekly Gold and Silver Technical Analysis Report - 13th May 2007 - Technically Precious with Merv / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Merv_Burak
It looked like gold just fell off the cliff on Thursday. On the two previous occasions that gold took such a fall we had a good several week rally within a day or two after. Are we getting one again?
GOLD : LONG TERM
Still no movement in the long term P&F chart despite the plunge on Thursday. So we wait another week before reviewing the chart.
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Sunday, May 13, 2007
Gold and Silver Analysis - Precious Points: Don't Fear the Repo / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Dominick
Joe Nicholson writes “Even if the Fed ignites a rally on Wednesday, as it has in recent months, profit-taking, instead of frenetic new buying, is still the most probable ultimate result.” ~Precious Points: The Ennui on the Way , May 6, 2007
After starting off the week with a bit of a haircut, metals traded in a tight range until Wednesday afternoon, when the Fed statement sparked a rally that was soundly sold off the next day. Stocks ultimately closed roughly flat for the week, but on top of a rally that seems to have inspired new hope for Monday. The question is whether or not to believe the hype.
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Saturday, May 12, 2007
Inflation and Precious Metals, Gold and Silver / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Paul_Saxena
"In an ideal world with a stable monetary base (zero monetary inflation), prices of almost everything (with a few exceptions) would be in decline. That would be a sign of real economic progress…"
INFLATION/DEFLATION - Analysts and economists seem to be divided over this issue. According to some market observers (including me), we are living in a highly inflationary environment. After all, money supply growth is extremely strong in most countries (Figure 1) and this represents inflation.
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Friday, May 11, 2007
Gold Price Drop: A gift horse / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
"...This week's sell-off in gold was only to be expected. It opened Monday lower from 12 months earlier for the first time since 2001..."
WHAT TO MAKE of gold's 2.6% drop after failing to hold $690 for the third time in two months?
"The market sees a falling gold price as a gift horse," reckons Jon Bergtheil, head of metals at J.P.Morgan in London .
"The fundamentals are still very positive."
How positive exactly? Other than the price, nothing has changed since Monday. The gold market is still getting squeezed between tightening supply and rising long-term demand.
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Friday, May 11, 2007
“CORN BASED” Ethanol, part II the dominoes begin to fall! / Commodities / Ethanol
By: Ty_Andros
Eight to 12 weeks ago I penned a piece on CORN BASED ethanol in the “Fingers of Instability” series, it is a careful overview of the industry and its potential benefits (NONE) and pitfalls (you can access it at TedBits March 14, 2007 I strongly recommend you read it before beginning this commentary, it is time well spent), now in part two we take a look at the burgeoning problems we outlined in that piece. It is a disaster, written larger and larger like a boulder hitting water the waves emanating outward are killer waves to so much more. It is like a game of dominoes where once set in motion it is difficult to race ahead of the chain reactions to avoid further downfalls.
El Ninja, has emerged off the coast of South America . What does this mean? It means a wet spring and hot summer if history is correct. The wet spring has become a reality , we will see about the hot summer part of the forcast. Having grown up in the corn belt of Lincoln , Nebraska I understand corn fairly well. I still remember some of my earliest summer employment De tasseling corn. It was grueling work in the hottest part of the summer, but as a young boy I was very strong and it was always wonderful to finish the work and emerge with a POCKETFUL of cash. It was great money for me at the time.
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Friday, May 11, 2007
The Coming Explosion in Energy prices! / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Ty_Andros
NIMBY is defined as “not in my back yard” and is set to strike at your pocketbook “RIGHT NOW”. For decades the Democrats controlled Congress and in return for campaign contributions and support they worked with environmentalist, and trial lawyer constituents, passing laws and regulations which allowed them to manipulate the court system to basically block energy production in the United States, a refinery hasn't been built in over 30 years.
Energy discovery and development has been severely restricted in the United States . Internationally, Oil and Natural gas production have been nationalized, and the results are predictable, the more government becomes involved the less we get of whatever they get involved in. As they for the most part suck the life and money out of whatever they touch.
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Friday, May 11, 2007
China Buying Gold! / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Money_and_Markets
Larry Edelson writes : I have absolutely no doubt that someday, and soon, you're going to hear that China has been actively buying gold as part of its strategy to diversify its $1.2 trillion in cash reserves.
When you hear that news, every broker and analyst under the sun is going to tell you to buy gold and gold mining shares like crazy.
But don't listen to them because it will be too late. By the time the Chinese admit they have been buying gold, I can assure you, we will be much closer to the top of the gold market than the bottom.
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Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Mining Merger Mania : Say it Three Times Fast / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: Michael_K_Dawson
I was shocked last week when I read a report from Merrill Lynch stating that BHP Billiton could possibly be a target of a private equity bid. BHP Billiton is the largest mining company in the world. I have always envisioned it as the acquirer not the acquiree. However, with so much money at stake - anything is possible.Read full article... Read full article...