Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Gold Hedge Against Credit Crisis Risks / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
THE PRICE OF GOLD BULLION gave back an overnight rally of 0.8% late-morning in London on Wednesday, recording an AM Fix of $974 per ounce as European stock markets tumbled for the seventh time in 11 sessions.The FTSE index of UK blue-chips sank 1.4%, while crude oil held near $136 per barrel, down almost $10 from Tuesday's near-record high.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Greenspan Backs Gold as World Currency / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mark_OByrne
Gold finished trading in New York yesterday at $977.10, up $5.00 and silver was down to $18.92, down 27 cents. Gold fell in Asia before rising in early European trading.Gold rallied strongly in early trading yesterday on higher oil, a lower dollar and increasing macroeconomic and systemic risk prior to the sharp fall in oil prices (some $10 in a short period of time ) which led to a selloff in precious metals. Despite the sharp selloff in oil, gold again remained resilient and finished some 0.5% higher in New York. The sharp fall in the oil price was attributed to margin calls due to equity losses and to fears of demand destruction due to the slowing U.S. and international economies.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The Messiah & the P.O.W. & Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: David_Vaughn
Well, what's gold doing right now? There are still very few who take the present financial situation serious enough to act on it. I believe gold hit 500 in 2005 and over 700 in 2006. Today it is well above 900. Anyone care out there?
A couple of years ago I was sitting in the barber's chair and chatting away. Yes, a real barber and not a “hair stylist.” Any way, right when a break came in my chatter the barber looked at me and said “too much information!” I guess the point is sometimes we say too much when we ought to keep our mouth shut. Last week I made a sarcastic remark about presidential elect Obama. What amazed me was how many folk do not recognize sarcastic humor when they hear it. And yes I am not afraid to say that I am not a supporter of Obama, but I still enjoy talking about the man because I find his rise to power amazing. Anyway, so much for that.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Crude Oil Parabolic Move Driven by Inflation Hedging that Could Unwind / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Having turned bearish on crude oil during the run up to above $146, and without repeating recent analysis that in summary had an initial target for a decline to $135 and a secondary target of $110 on break of $135 amidst a background of a possible spike higher following an attack on Iran, which I concluded as a low probability event of less than 20%.
What is of critical importance is to remind oil investors waiting for a parabolic rise, that we are already well into a parabolic move in crude oil. Therefore waiting for a move to between $200 and $300 would be in addition to the existing parabolic move from $50 to $147 just a day ago.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Gold Stocks Soar as the Bears are on the Loose in Goldilocks Economy Country / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks
By: Alex_Wallenwein
Mama, Papa, and Baby Bear are back from their walk in the woods. They find the goldilocks economy sitting on their gold stocks and unceremoniously decide to eat her. End of story.
The bears are on the loose in goldilocks country, the place where fairy tales of a “new economy” were once sold to unsuspecting investors. As usual, stories change, depending on whoever gets to live to tell them. Alas, Goldilocks will not be among those.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Crude Oil and the 6 Year Cycle as Speculator Sentiment Reaches Extreme Highs / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Clif_Droke
In previous commentaries we took a close look at the attributes of the 6-year cycle, which is bottoming this summer. The 6-year cycle is a component of the famous 120-year Kress Cycle and when it bottoms it tends to have a pronounced effect on stock prices and often the economy.
Right now the 6-year cycle is the paramount consideration trumping all other factors in the financial markets, whether it be the credit crisis, rising food and fuel costs or anything else. For every cause must have an effect and when it comes to the markets it's the cycles that are the chief cause behind the effects we're seeing.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Gold Pushes Higher on Fresh US Dollar All Time Low / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
THE SPOT PRICE OF GOLD jumped for the fifth session running in London on Tuesday, adding 1.2% against the US Dollar as crude oil broke back above $146 per barrel.European shares meantime slid to a three-year low, losing 2.2% in Frankfurt as the US currency sank 1% to a new all-time low vs. the Euro. Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Investing in Oil to Beat Inflation / Commodities / Oil Companies
By: Mike_Stathis
According to Washington , the official inflation rate is around 4.1%. At this point, I think it's obvious most consumers know this data is wrong. Of course some people accept anything Washington reports, especially the agenda-driven “experts” on television who bring in media hams as cheerleaders to spread the ludicrous propaganda of a strong economy.
You don't need a Ph.D in economics or finance to know that inflation is approaching levels similar to those seen in the 1970s. In fact, those who have been formally trained in these disciplines are more likely to miss what is really going on because they've been programmed to think that fancy math is always superior to common sense. But they often neglect to consider the fact that new standards are continuously being devised to hide the real data - from inflation and unemployment numbers to GDP and poverty statistics.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Silver Futures Market Exchange Rules Under an Emergency / Commodities / Market Manipulation
By: David_Morgan
In last week's column I presented some fallacies that pertain to the silver market. The feedback I received was mixed; most was positive but some was negative, proclaiming that I was implying the "shorts" could not lose and investing in silver was almost hopeless.
This is not my studied position at all. In fact it has been my conviction from the time I began writing about the silver market that silver is one of the best investments to be made, from the year 2000 to present, and I still maintain that the physical silver and gold markets are the foundational investments that must be owned by any serious precious metals investor.
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Inflation and Oil Ratio Bullish for Precious Metals / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Captain_Hook
Don't tell this to the price fixers though. Apparently it's fine and dandy to let all other ‘commodities' rise in allowing this inflation thingy blow-off, but not gold, and especially not silver since it's so easily controlled. What kind of a message would that send to the investment world? If silver were allowed to rise, well, then it wouldn't make a lot of sense for gold to be odd man out considering its vital role in the economy, that being the ultimate measure of currency. In fact, if other vital commodities are rising sharply, already it makes little sense gold has not risen further, especially with the world's present ‘reserve currency' the fiat dollar in decline. So again, it would be especially troubling if silver were to begin rising impulsively and gold was left behind from this perspective. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 14, 2008
Tokyo Gold Breaks 25-Year High on Fannie-Freddie Bail Out / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
THE SPOT PRICE OF GOLD slipped 1% against the US Dollar at the London opening on Monday, giving back one-third of Friday's $23 surge as crude oil dropped and government bond prices fell.Credit spreads – a measure of investor concern over the risk of default – also ticked lower after Sunday's promise of unlimited tax-funded support for Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the $5 trillion US mortgage companies, from the Treasury in Washington .
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Monday, July 14, 2008
Silver Breakout Above Resistance- Strong Buy Signal / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Clive_Maund
Last week both gold and silver staged important breakouts from base areas to commence major uptrends. This is a development that we had been expecting for quite some time. In this update we will concentrate on the differences worth remarking on in the silver chart, and readers are referred, as usual, to the Gold Market update for the general arguments applicable to both metals. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, July 14, 2008
Gold Major Breakout on Freddie & Fannie Catastrophe / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Clive_Maund
Last week both gold and silver staged important breakouts from base areas to commence major uptrends. This is a development that we had been expecting for quite some time. On the 1-year chart for gold we can see how it first broke out from the 3-arc Fan Correction that we earlier delineated with the biggest one day rise for many years - itself a very bullish development. After that it reacted back from the clear line of resistance dating back to late March that marked the top of the base area. This reaction served to ease the short-term overbought condition. Then late last week it blasted through the resistance, this move synchronising with a breakdown by the dollar in response to the Fannie - Freddie catastrophe. Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, July 13, 2008
How to Use Gold to Protect Your Portfolio and Profit / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Money_Morning
Keith Fitz-Gerald writes: One of the things people don't understand about buying gold for diversification is that it doesn't work all the time.
It works over time. That means that you can't simply switch from one asset class to another when the going gets tough and expect miracles. Nor can you expect higher returns.
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Sunday, July 13, 2008
Gold and the Credit Crisis / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Roland_Watson
It could not have escaped your attention that the financial sector is undergoing a crisis of confidence just now as the sub-prime loan debacle continues to ripple out to what was once thought as impervious sectors of the banking world.
Having watched the spectacle of bank runs, bank failures (i.e. takeovers), a falling housing market, increased cost of credit, emergency Fed loans and banks trying to boost capital through rights issues, investors are naturally concerned that even their deposit accounts are under threat. Well so far I am not aware of any major loss of funds by depositors as the Federal Reserve steps in to stabilize the cash flow of vulnerable banks and guarantee the deposits of customers via the FDIC scheme.
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Friday, July 11, 2008
Gold Resting Ahead of Next Upleg / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mike_Paulenoff
In the event of the world's financial, geopolitical and energy-related problems are NOT solved over the weekend, classic pattern analysis in the streetTRACKS Gold ETF (NYSE: GLD) argues for rest-digestion-pullback into the upside breakout area at 94.00-93.50, followed by a powerful upside pivot reversal that commences a new upleg. Should such a scenario unfold, then we should expect the GLD to head for 96.50 and then 100. Only a break below 92.00 will begin to compromise the upside breakout scenario.Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 11, 2008
Crude Oil Demand Destruction Stops at the US Border / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Peter_Schiff
As the price of oil reverses course again and closes in on the unheard of price of $150 per barrel, Americans are finally responding to the pressure and have cut back on gasoline consumption. According to a report this week, Americans used 3.3% less gasoline than at the same time last year and usage now stands at a five-year low. Although the relative merits of slowing energy consumption is a subject upon which reasonable minds can disagree, the drop is nonetheless an extremely rare event in American economic history. Many on Wall Street are cheering the possibility that further “demand destruction” will ultimately lead to significantly lower oil prices. After all, this is basic economics. Prices are a function of supply and demand, and as demand drops, prices must follow. This is simple logic, wrongly applied. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 11, 2008
The Big Secret about Peak Oil and the US Military / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Mike_Stathis
Those of you who do not believe Peak Oil Theory should first make sure you fully understand it. According to this theory, after a reservoir has been depleted by half of its total volume, the output begins to plateau or remain constant for some unknown period. At some later time (which is unpredictable) the output begins a permanent decline of variable duration (which is also unpredictable) until the remaining quantity of oil is no longer economically feasible to extract with current technology. Therefore, Peak Oil Theory does not state that the earth is running out of oil per say. It states that the earth is running out of inexpensive oil, otherwise known as conventional oil – the high-grade oil that comes out by drilling on land and requires minimal refinement costs. Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, July 11, 2008
Gold Soars on Rumours of Imminent Israeli Attack on Iran Nuclear Facilities / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
SPOT GOLD PRICES came within one dollar of a 15-week high early Friday in London, jumping 2.6% from yesterday's low as European stock markets fell for the sixth time in nine sessions.Crude oil prices meantime shot $4 to a new record high of almost $146 per barrel after the Jerusalem Post quoted Iraqi sources saying that Israel is practicing and preparing air strikes on nuclear sites in Iran .
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Friday, July 11, 2008
AMEX GOLD BUGS INDEX (HUI): Another Golden Opportunity to Buy Gold Shares? / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks
By: Peter_Zihlmann
Two major gold indices dominate the market - the Philadelphia Stock Exchange's XAU and the AMEX's Gold BUGS Index (HUI).
The major difference between the two is that the BUGS index is made up exclusively of mining stocks that do not hedge their gold positions more than a year-and-a-half into the future. This makes the BUGS Index much more profitable than the XAU when gold prices are rising, but can also compound its losses when gold declines. BUGS is an acronym for B asket of U nhedged Gold Stocks. The index was introduced on March 15, 1996 with a starting value of 200.
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