Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, March 10, 2017
Gold – It Is Still All About The US Dollar / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
In my original article I made the following statements:
“It means that holders of any non-USD currency who want to exchange it for gold, must first exchange it for US dollars and then exchange the US dollars for gold.
When anyone is selling gold, the proceeds are always paid in US dollars. The dollars can be held as such, or they can be exchanged for other currency.”
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Friday, March 10, 2017
Exponential Solar Power Growth Means Fossil Fuels Are Toast / Commodities / Solar Energy
With all the oil-related headlines we’re exposed to each day, you might assume that “black gold,” along with other fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, matter to humanity’s future. You’d be wrong. Like Keynesian economics and fiat currencies, fossil fuels are near the end of their run. From here on out, solar is the story.
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Wednesday, March 08, 2017
A Whole New World of Gold Demand Is Opening Up... Muslims / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
Most analysis of gold and silver markets tends to be U.S.-centric. However, the next secular trend in precious metals markets may have less to do with U.S. debt, U.S. politics, the U.S. central bank, and the U.S. dollar and more to do with a gigantic new source of demand.
It’s not the 1970s anymore. Back then, big moves in the metals markets were centered on United States. The great gold and silver mania of the late 1970s was driven by inflation fears and a rush of speculative demand. Although coin dealers struggled to keep up, there was no actual global shortage of physical metal, and spot prices crashed after manic buying peaked in January 1980.
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Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Gold Investing 101 – Beware Unallocated Gold Accounts With Indebted Institutions (Part II) / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
Gold Investing 101 – Beware Unallocated Gold Accounts With Indebted Bullion Banks and Mints (Part II)
- Investors looking to gold again but gold buyers need to exert caution
- Royal Mint – a royally expensive way to help the government
- Unallocated gold – unsecured creditor of a bank?
- If you cannot hold it, you do not own it
- Own gold bullion coins as insurance, to reduce counter party risk and to preserve wealth
- Conclusion – Reduce counter parties, Don’t over complicate
Wednesday, March 08, 2017
Is A Second OPEC Oil Cut On The Cards? / Commodities / Crude Oil
OPEC’s coordinated effort to curtail global supply has so far managed to put a floor under oil prices, which have been sitting modestly above US$50 since the deal was announced at the end of November last year. But resurging U.S. shale has been capping the upside, and Brent has not breached US$58 per barrel. Analysts and experts are now mostly predicting that oil prices will remain below US$60 this year.
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Tuesday, March 07, 2017
Fake Gold Coins Warning - “Pure” Gold Coins that are Gold Plated, Collectibles and eBay / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
Gold Investing 101 – Beware eBay, Collectibles and “Pure” Gold Coins that are Gold Plated (Part I)
- Investors looking to gold again but gold buyers need to exert caution
- ‘Wolves of Wall Street’ ready to hungrily gobble up life savings of unsuspecting ‘widows and orphans’
- Like all markets are few bad apples in gold market
- Need to do due diligence on company buying from
- Avoid companies marketing gold plated coins as “pure gold” coins
- Collectible coins do not capture the value of gold and are not safe havens
- Not liquid and pricing similar to art market
- Own gold bullion coins as insurance, to reduce counter party risk and to preserve wealth
Tuesday, March 07, 2017
The Agriculture Revolution Is Coming / Commodities / Agricultural Commodities
BY PATRICK WATSON : Humans have needs, but we need some things more than others.
Back in the 1940s, American psychologist Abraham Maslow famously classified human needs into a hierarchy, often shown as a pyramid.
At the foundation are our physiological needs: air, water, food, etc. Only when these needs are met can we reach upward to more and more refined stages of material, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual fulfillment.
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Tuesday, March 07, 2017
China’s Domestic Problems Are Good News for Gold Investors / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
In 1978, one year after taking control of impoverished China, Deng Xiaoping declared “to get rich is glorious.” Since Deng’s declaration, China’s per-capita GDP has grown by over 5,000%.
China is without question the biggest economic success story in recent history. However, rapid growth has come at a cost. China’s total debt/GDP ratio is now a staggering 277%—and the credit expansion is showing no sign of slowing. New bank loans in 2016 totaled $1.84 trillion—8% above the previous record.
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Tuesday, March 07, 2017
Chartology of the Commodities: The Inflation/Deflation Barometer / Commodities / Commodities Trading
One of the biggest questions investors have is what type of environment are stocks and the economy in, deflation or inflation? Knowing the answer to that question can give you a heads up on what different sectors to invest in and what sectors to stay away from. Tonight I would like to update some of the different commodities indexes to see if they can give us any clues on which way the deflationary or inflationary pendulum is swinging. Commodities are often an under analysed asset class as compared to Stocks and Bonds. However they are the nuts and bolts , the real stuff supporting human existence.
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Monday, March 06, 2017
Trapped Longs In Miners As Gold Poised For Fed Fuelled Fall / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks 2017
The Fed will hike rates this month and signal further hikes to come. Gold prices have yet to fully digest this reality, and therefore there is a strong case for a major move lower in the yellow metal. A Le Pen victory in France could derail the Fed’s plans for a follow up hike in June, but in the short term the gold market is vulnerable to a sharp move lower. There are a number of trapped speculative longs in the futures and mining stocks and we are approaching a period of seasonal weakness. We target a move to $1050 initially, and see merits in a larger move to $720 should the Fed persist with further hikes.
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Monday, March 06, 2017
Why Gold Will Boom In 2017 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
As Trump sets out to ‘make America great again’, gold is back on everyone’s radar, gaining on widespread uncertainty and promises of high-level inflationary infrastructure spending. For our favorite precious metal, this is a euphoric time. Gold is great again, and all-American gold—even better.The world’s hottest mining belt right now is the U.S. state of Montana. With gold futures up 10 percent and spot prices up almost 7.5 percent in the first quarter, history is preparing to repeat itself with another gold rush.
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Saturday, March 04, 2017
Copper Confirms the Negative Outlook for Precious Metals and Crude Oil / Commodities / Copper
Looking at the charts, technical analyst Clive Maund sees copper "riding for a fall."
We have already observed how oil and precious metals are looking set to turn lower, especially oil, and the medium-term bearish outlook for these commodities is confirmed by the negative setup that we will now examine on the latest charts for copper. Ordinarily we are not all that interested in copper, because there are few suitable trading vehicles we can use to play it, so our interest is mainly due to its implications for other markets.
Saturday, March 04, 2017
More Downside Potential in the Gold Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017
While we expected the gold stocks to correct and test GDX $22 and GDXJ $35, we did not expect it to happen so quickly. It literally took only three days! Gold stocks rebounded on Friday and managed to close the week above those key levels. While gold stocks could bounce or consolidate for a few days, we would advise patience as lower levels could be tested as spring begins.
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Saturday, March 04, 2017
Oil Market - You Won't Get a Clearer Warning Than This One / Commodities / Crude Oil
Technical analyst Clive Maund charts changes that portend a "brutal decline" in both the oil and precious metals markets.
This quick update on oil is to point out that the latest oil COTs and Hedgers positions were at frightening extremes, as oil has struggled and failed, thus far, to break higher. This is viewed as meaning trouble—BIG TROUBLE—for the oil market, where we could see a precipitous drop as in 2014.
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Friday, March 03, 2017
Silver On Sale – 4% Fall On Massive $2 Billion of Futures Selling / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
Silver fell a very sharp 85 cents from $18.40 per ounce to as low as $17.65 per ounce yesterday for a 4.25% price fall soon after the London bullion markets closed yesterday despite no market news or corresponding sharp moves in other markets.
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Friday, March 03, 2017
Macroeconomic Outlook and Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
As everyone knows, the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election was a disastrous time for the yellow metal. However, gold rebounded at the beginning of 2017, gaining almost 6 percent in January and rising further in February, as one can see in the chart below.
Chart 1: The price of gold over the last year (London P.M. Fix).
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Thursday, March 02, 2017
The Myth of Gold Confiscation / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
If we experience a debt crisis, as many economists believe is inevitable, many people believe that their holdings of gold and silver bullion will be confiscated, just as in 1933. This article reviews the probability of confiscation and compares it to other more likely measures to generate government solvency.
An appropriate starting point when addressing concerns about gold confiscation is to define the word 'confiscation.' Merriam Webster says 'to seize or buy as if by authority' and 'to seize without compensation as forfeited to the public treasury.' Almost without exception, it is expropriation that is the actual risk, not confiscation. Confiscation, as in forfeiture, is usually the result of theft, treason, insurrection, war or genocide. Expropriation is defined as 'to take (property) of an individual in the exercise of state sovereignty' (Merriam Webster). The key difference between confiscation and expropriation is the appropriate compensation of the individual for the transfer of his or her property.
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Thursday, March 02, 2017
Oil Majors' Costs Have Risen 66% Since 2011 / Commodities / Oil Companies
The oil majors reported poor earnings for the fourth quarter of last year, but many oil executives struck an optimistic tone about the road ahead. Oil prices have stabilized and the cost cutting measures implemented over the past three years should allow companies to turn a profit even though crude trades for about half of what it did back in 2014.
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Wednesday, March 01, 2017
Gold Pressured By Increasing Odds of March FED Rate Hike / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
The gold price has corrected by roughly $25 over the past few days. This pullback has been driven by increased odds of a Fed rate hike during March. Federal Reserve officials have been making hawkish comments lately, which has been supportive of the USD index and thus bearish for precious metals. After hitting a 2017 high of $1,265 on Monday, the gold price has since dropped back to $1240 today.
On Monday the odds of a March rate hike were around 40%, but they have since increased to around 70% to 80% today. New York Fed President William Dudley told CNNMoney on Tuesday that the case for raising interest rates is growing.
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Wednesday, March 01, 2017
Art Market Bubble Bursting – Gauguin Value Collapses 74% To $22 Million / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017
– Art Market Bubble Bursting?
– Russian Billionaire Takes 74% Loss On “Investment”
– $85 Million Gauguin Bought By Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2008
– Christie’s auctioned the work at its evening sale in London
– Global art sales plummet, but China rises as ‘art superpower’
– China soon to dominates global art and gold market
– Art price volumes doubled since 2009
– As currencies debase super rich seek out stores of value
– Gold remains accessible store of value for all
– Stocks, bonds and many assets at record prices
– Gold half it’s real price in 1980