Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Gold and Silver Relative Calm in Wild Markets / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Alasdair_Macleod

This week has been extremely volatile for oil, currencies and stock markets. Against this background gold and silver have drifted sideways to slightly lower, which given the dollar's strong performance is almost a positive result.

Along with a collapsing oil price on Monday and Tuesday, the Russian ruble fell from 58 to the USD on Monday to 77 the following day. It was clear that Russian oligarchs were getting out of rubles as fast as they could, hence the steep fall. By yesterday things had calmed down and the ruble was back to the 60.4 this morning. There was a slight frisson of excitement over the release of the FOMC minutes on Wednesday, to be followed by Quadruple Witching today. Stock index futures, stock index options, stock options and single stock options all expire on the third Friday of December. The result is the Dow 30 Index rose by 4.3% between Tuesday's opening and last night's close on an enormous bear squeeze.

Friday, December 19, 2014

US Dollar and the Gold Fairy Tale / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: John_Mauldin

Grant Williams writes: On Christmas Eve 1979, 27 days before I became a teenager, in a surburban street in Moseley in Britain’s West Midlands, a group of musicians put the finishing touches on their debut album.

The musicians — Brian Travers, Astro, James Brown (no, not that one), Earl Falconer, Norman Hassan, Mickey Virtue, and twins Ali and Robin Campbell — had a unique approach to the music business.

Eighteen months prior to completing their first album, Ali Campbell and Travers had plastered the streets of Birmingham with leaflets promoting the band, which had taken its name from the document issued to people claiming unemployment benefits from the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). The name of the form — and thus the band — was UB40.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Why Russia Will Halt the Ruble’s Slide and Keep Pumping Oil / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Marin_Katusa

The harsh reality is that U.S. shale fields have much more to fear from plummeting oil prices than the Russians, since their costs of production are much higher, says Marin Katusa, author of The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped from America’s Grasp.

Russia’s ruble may have strengthened sharply Wednesday, but it’s plunge in recent days has encouraged plenty of talk about the country’s catastrophe, with some even proclaiming that the new Russia is about to go the way of the old USSR.

Friday, December 19, 2014

The Commodities Market Is Not Dying, It’s Just Hibernating / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Submissions

Nicholas Maithya writes: The price of Gold plunged massively in 2014, especially during the second half of the year and based on the current market sentiment, there are fears that things could get worse over the next few quarters. Other popular commodities like Silver and Oil also followed the same trajectory, with Oil in particular trading at some of the lowest levels in recent history. The various ETFs associated with these assets have also followed the same trend as investors continue to shift investments to the equities market.

Friday, December 19, 2014

Oil Prices: A True Black Swan or the Work of Vultures? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Money_Morning

Dr. Kent Moors writes: Oil prices are struggling to stabilize in the wake of what some are calling a “black swan” event.

It refers to a theory popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a well-known risk analyst and statistician.

A black swan is an outlier, a development that fails to follow any normal pattern.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Gold Price Building Foundations For Rally / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Austin_Galt

Gold has been steadily trending up since its early November low. The Swiss gold vote was expected so it was no surprise to see price turn back up after the initial dip in price. I still believe gold is on the cusp of a much greater rally so let's see where things currently stand.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The Price Of Gold And The Art Of War / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Darryl_R_Schoon

If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by
                            Sun Tzu, The Art of War, fifth century BC

When growth slows in capital markets, the bankers’ daisy-chain of credit and debt breaks down; setting in motion defaulting debt which ends in recession, deflation or, in extreme cases, a deflationary depression.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

U.S. Gold Production Declined 7% During First 9 Months of 2014 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Jason_Hamlin

I have long argued that gold would bottom around the all-in cost of production and this would provide price support. This is because as the price drops below the cost to produce, miners will be forced to shut down or suspend operations. This reduces supply and lower supply is supportive of prices, assuming demand remains relatively stable. We are finally starting to see signs that gold supplies are declining.

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Crude Oil Price: What's Next? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: EWI

Today, there is no shortage of opinions about oil.

So why should you bother reading this one?

Because 99% of oil forecasts out there are based on so-called fundamentals. The same "fundamentals" that back in June, when oil cost $107 a barrel, promised even higher prices due to:

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Crude Oil Price - The Doji-generated Reversal? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Nadia_Simmons

Trading position (short-term; our opinion): No positions are justified from the risk/reward perspective.

The price of crude oil declined yesterday once again - was the bottom reached yet?

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Gold Roubles - This Is What Gold Does In a Currency Crisis / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: John_Rubino

To say that gold is in a bear market is to misunderstand both gold and markets. Gold isn't an investment that goes up and down. It is money in the most basic store-of-value sense. Most of the time it just sits there, and when its price changes in local currency terms that says more about the local currency than about gold.

But when currencies collapse, gold shines.

Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Opposing Forces At Play In Gold and Silver Precious Metals Complex / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015

By: GoldSilverWorlds

Ronald Stoeferle writes: Precious metals had a hard time in 2014. However, this year proved to be not as catastrophic as last year, as the gold price remained in the trading range which was established last year after the waterfall price declines.

The “good” news for gold bulls is that the bottom of the trading range has been tested a third time, in particular on November 10th 2014. Readers undoubtedly remember how the previous two tests took place in June 2013 and on the very last day of 2013.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Gold and Silver Stocks Bottom - Are We There Yet? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014

By: Rambus_Chartology

One can only draw so many lines on a chart before they become completely confused on what trendline is actually important. Many will just starting connecting two top points and two bottom points and calling it a pattern. That's not how you find a chart pattern. A chart pattern shows the fight between the bulls and the bears. Lets use a triangle as an example of the fight between the bulls and the bear in an uptrend.

If the stock is in an uptrend the first reversal point will be when the initial top takes place. This can be on any time frame. Next you need to see the bears take control and drive prices lower creating the first reversal point starting at the top. At some point the bears will run out of gas and the bulls come charging back rallying the price backup to another high that is slightly lower than the first reversal point number one high, before they run out of strength to move the stock higher. Once the lower high is in place you can put a number 2 under the first low inside the triangle.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Crude Oil Price Epic Blowout / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Bob_Loukas

The FED’s easy money has encouraged rampant energy speculation and over-investment, resulting in more than $500 billion in new loans and investments in just the past 4 years. And so long as Crude prices stayed comfortably above $90, investments made money and everyone was happy. But once energy prices started falling, the decline quickly became a negative loop-back effect because the very high levels of leverage could not tolerate the move. Whenever asset prices fall in a highly levered market, there is often a sudden lack of liquidity to absorb the speculators’ need to unwind leverage, leading to desperation and fire sales. In the case of energy, the sudden disappearance of “investors” highlights just how speculative the underlying market had become.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Stunning Crude Oil Price Crash - Black Gold Loses its Glitter / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Peter_Schiff

The stunning 40% drop in the price of oil over the past few months has scrambled global economic forecasts, changed the geo-political landscape, and has severely pressured many energy sector investments. Economists are scratching their heads to determine if the drop is good or bad for the economy or whether cheap oil will add to or decrease unemployment, or complicate the global effort to "defeat" deflation. While all of these issues merit detailed discussions, the first question to address is if the steep drop is here to stay and whether energy prices will stay low enough, for long enough, to seriously reshuffle the economic deck. Based on a variety of factors, this is not likely to happen. I believe a series of technical, industrial, and monetary factors will combine to push oil back up to, and potentially beyond, the levels that it has seen over the last few years.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Silver Price Bottom? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Clive_Maund

Silver broke out of its 5-month downtrend last week as expected, but, as with gold, the move was unfortunately not confirmed by action in stocks, which have continued to drift lower. When this fact is combined with the ramping of Commercial short and Large Spec long positions over the past couple of weeks, it starts to look like this breakout was false. Certainly a reaction is looking a lot more likely now.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Gold Price Base Building Bullish Pattern / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Clive_Maund

If we lived in a normal word of fiscal propriety, the falling oil price would be viewed as something to celebrate, as it reduces costs across the board, and should theoretically boost the economy, but we live in an abnormal debt-wracked world where instead fears are surfacing that the plunging oil price will trigger a series of cascading loan defaults that have the potential to collapse the system - already world stockmarkets are buckling. If things really start to unravel it should provide the perfect excuse to bring in global coordinated QE, which we have been moving towards over the past few years, albeit on an ad hoc basis, whose underlying purpose will be to maintain interest rates at zero to stop the system collapsing, and to push the bill for the mess onto the little guy, whose standard of living will be progressively eroded by QE engendered inflation. At what point will they ride to the rescue with their global QE program? - that is a matter of conjecture, but we can presume that they will wait until things get sufficiently bad that people are starting to clamor for it so that it becomes politically acceptable and they can get away with it.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Silver Eagle Coin Sales Very Robust - Record High For Second Consecutive Year / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: GoldCore

Silver bullion demand remains very robust as silver stackers continue to stack. 2014 has been another record-breaking year at the U.S. Mint which has sold 43.3 million silver eagle coins – up from 42.7 million coins last year.

Monday, December 15, 2014

Is The Oil Price Collapse A Monumental Black Swan? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: DK_Matai

Although the conditions for an oil price collapse have been there since 2013, yet when it arrived in the second half of 2014, it happened suddenly and then accelerated in momentum like a snowball rolling down the Alps. A truly monumental black swan with many cascading consequences for geo-strategy, financial markets and the global economy. Ten key questions discussed at a recent private lunch ATCA 5000 hosted for select chairmen and chief executives of major financial institutions, family offices and technology players:

Monday, December 15, 2014

Gold - The Weight of Time as Trend / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Submissions

George R Harrison writes: We’ve all felt it. The ‘weight’ of time acting as Trends in the markets.

Trends that hold longer than expected and whose change in direction appears when we least expect or believe it.

Once time accumulates for an action and establishes a Trend, those trends take a lot of work to change.