Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, December 04, 2014
New Signs Gold and Silver Are Returning as Monetary Assets / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Stefan Gleason writes: Much to the chagrin of the financial elite, gold and silver are reentering the American consciousness and starting to shake the wing nutty image of their recent past. But it’s taken a global financial crisis to get the public’s attention – one that could wipe out our nation at almost any moment.
The U.S. government’s role in the economy is on a seemingly interminable upward trajectory. The government’s official debt balance that just crossed the $18 trillion mark (with additional unfunded liabilities estimated at more than $100 trillion). Half the population now lives in households that receive government payments.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
With The U.S Market Looking Bullish, How Do You Invest In Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Nicholas Maithya writes: This year has been one of the best for US equities in recent times, at least judging by the movement of the leading indices – the S&P 500 (SPX), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), and the NASDAQ Composite (IXIX), along with their corresponding ETFS. They have all rallied to record highs this year, albeit with dips and rebounds that often characterize an upward trending market.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Gold 2014 YTD in JPY, EUR, GBP and USD / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Despite the worst sentiment towards gold we have seen since the brief 30% price fall in 2008, gold continues to eke out gains in all major currencies. So far in 2014, gold is 14.3%, 12.3%, 5.8% and 0.4% higher in japanese yen, euros, sterling and dollars respectively (see chart).
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 04, 2014
The Myth of Lower Oil Prices Will Hit Consumers / Commodities / Crude Oil
Michael E. Lewitt writes: Media elites and Wall Street cheerleaders are greeting lower oil prices with open arms.
Investors should beware these self-appointed experts bearing gifts.
Oil prices are falling for reasons that should be surprising to nobody: supply has been rising and demand has been falling. If prolonged, which it is likely to be, the drop in oil prices is going to be destabilizing geopolitically and damaging economically.
Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Could Falling Crude Oil Prices Spark a Financial Crisis? / Commodities / Crude Oil
The oil and gas boom in the United States was made possible by the extensive credit afforded to drillers. Not only has financing come from company shareholders and traditional banks, but hundreds of billions of dollars have also come from junk-bond investors looking for high returns.
Junk-bond debt in energy has reached $210 billion, which is about 16 percent of the $1.3 trillion junk-bond market. That is a dramatic rise from just 4 percent that energy debt represented 10 years ago.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Gold Price Will Regain Its Shine in 2015 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
For all the talk of gold sinking remorselessly to $1,000 an ounce, the metal has risen to $1,200 per ounce and has held its ground. Have we seen the bottom? Money managers Doug Loud and Jeff Mosseri of Greystone Asset Management say that if we haven't seen the bottom, we will soon. In this interview with The Gold Report, they predict that the next bull market will result in patient investors realizing gains in the multiples and suggest several companies poised to break out.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Silver Turns Strongly Bullish / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Much of what is written in the parallel Gold Market update applies equally to silver, and it will not be repeated here.
On silver's 6-month chart we can see how it broke well below its November lows in the early trade yesterday, in response to the "No" vote in Switzerland on the referendum on whether to partially back the Swiss Franc with gold, but then it came back strongly on big volume to almost entirely erase Friday's sharp losses, leaving behind a large Bull Hammer on its chart. While the "tail" of this hammer is rather short in relation to its "real body", meaning the trading between the open and the close, the big daily range and massive volume means that it can be considered as a valid reversal hammer. This action is indicative of an important reversal, and here we should note that it is normal for the price to back and fill for a little while after the appearance of such a hammer, before the nascent uptrend it signifies gets underway, which is why we are not concerned by today's reaction. As we can see on the chart, the price is still being constrained by the downtrend line shown and the 50-day moving average, but these impediments should not stop it for long - once the price does break above them it should advance smartly, especially as sentiment towards silver has been terribly negative in the recent past.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Gold Turns Bullish / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Yesterday was an extraordinary day in the Precious Metals markets, with a good chance that it signals the reversal from the brutal 3-year plus bear market that so many have waited so long to see. The day started with gold and silver plunging on the news that the Swiss voted against backing their currency with gold, but later in the day they rallied strongly on heavy turnover to close with giant reversal candlesticks on their charts. Regardless of the reasons for this bizarre behavior, technically this action looks very positive, and this is written with the awareness that gold has reacted back this morning on dollar strength.
On gold's 6-month chart we can see how it approached its November lows in the early trade after the Swiss vote, but rallied strongly on big volume to close above its November highs, above the recently failed key support that is now resistance and above its 50-day moving average, which was quite an accomplishment, leaving behind a large "Bullish Engulfing Pattern" on its chart. This points to a probable strong advance dead ahead, so today's reaction should be used to clear out any short positions, and also to go long aggressively with stops below the November low. This action by gold, and by silver, suggests that the current bull Flag in the dollar, which is getting a bit "long in the tooth", may be about to abort.
Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Nuclear Reactors Restart Uranium Mines / Commodities / Uranium
Thomas Drolet has decades of experience in capitalizing on the movement of international energy markets. The chief of Drolet & Associates Energy Services is not sanguine about the long-term potential of fracking, but in this interview with The Mining Report, he tells us why now is a great time to reinvest in the uranium space.
The Mining Report: It's been a rough couple of years for uranium prices. Realistically, could news of possible restarts of nuclear plants in Japan positively impact the price of uranium, even if it's only psychologically?
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Swiss Rejects Gold - Should You? Free Gold Report 2015 (Expires Soon) / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Greetings,
As gold hit new lows last week, Swiss voters prepared to reject a measure that would have required their central bank to hold a portion of its assets in gold and repatriate 30% of central bank gold stored in Canada and in the U.K.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Commodities Year End Low / Commodities / Crude Oil
After waiting all year for the expected year-end low in commodities, SPSGCI should finally be there (although it probably doesn’t feel that way for oil bulls). Last month’s low at 510 shows up as a possible low in my price forecasting model just as a monthly cycle points to a low in November (or December). The next monthly cycle high is not due until October 2015.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Silver Open Interest Anomaly / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Each week the CFTC publishes data from futures and options contracts for many commodities. Open interest shows the number of open contracts – one long for each short – in a particular commodity, say silver.
Usually price direction is consistent with open interest trend.
See the 14 year graph of open interest and prices in the silver market. Prices are shown on a log scale with silver prices in black, while open interest (per CFTC) is shown on the left in red.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Gold, What Does the End of QE3 Really Mean? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
So it finally happened. The Federal Reserve ended its Quantitative Easing program on October 29, 2014 due to concerns that keeping QE for so long could fuel excessive risk-taking by investors. The U.S. dollar continued to conquer new heights, while gold did not welcome this central bank action. Its price fell in November to $1,142, a four-year low. This is not surprising given the fact that as we wrote (in the last Market Overview), the condition of the U.S. dollar is one of the most important drivers of gold prices.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Australian Gold Sector Are We There Yet? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014
The Australian gold sector index (XGD) topped during the week of 15th April 2011 at 8498.9. The first fact to consider from this article is that this occurred nearly 5 months ahead of the peak in gold when the king of metals had just reached the high US$1400. As you well know gold went on to rise to US$1920.8 approximately $430 higher than when the gold stocks peaked. To make the same point again this index reached a previous top at 8448.4 in the week of the 12th November 2010 when gold closed at US$1368.5. That was approximately 10 months ahead of the top in gold. This is a critical point to understand as we grind through the remainder of this painful correction in gold.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
On the Swiss Gold Referendum / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
The Swiss gold initiative has come and gone. It can be summarized as much ado about nothing. Even if it had passed, the initiative would have had no real impact on the Swiss National Bank’s ability to print money or conduct monetary policy.
The central bank is currently defending a 1.2 Swiss franc to the euro floor. By pegging its currency, the Swiss central bank has basically opted to follow its neighbor’s excessively easy monetary policy. To keep the peg, the central bank has been purchasing euros by printing Swiss francs. The central bank then returns the euros to the Euro money supply by purchasing European government bonds. It could have just as easily used those euros to buy dollars for gold. In either case, the euros or dollars are returned to the market, and therefore the Swiss action does not influence the respective Euro or US money supplies. We must remember that exchange rates are determined by differences in monetary growth rates and anticipation of what those differences will be in the future.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Gold and Silver Bears Shocked By Unusual Intra-Day Reversal / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
"Through the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
With patience He stands waiting, with exactness He grinds all."- Baron Friedrich von Logau, Sinngedichte
As you know the Swiss gold referendum was defeated this Sunday, along with all the other initiatives issues like tax reform and immigration.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
Huge Oil, Gold Silver Price Reversals; Is the Bottom In? / Commodities / Commodities Trading
Gold, silver, and oil put in pretty spectacular reversals today from Friday Noon. Let's take a look.
Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, December 02, 2014
The Inside Story on OPEC’s Oil Price War / Commodities / Crude Oil
Dr. Kent Moors writes: My meetings here in Dubai are at the Burj Al Arab, the fabled “seven-star hotel” built like a huge ship’s sail on its own man-made island.
At center stage are some of the region’s top oil policy makers, including a rather impressive forty-one year old, His Excellency Suhali Mohamed Faraj Al-Mazrouei.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 01, 2014
Gold - Bloomberg TV Blows It Big Time / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Sometimes you just have to chuckle. I had been out all morning picking up some visiting in-laws in the City. When I came home I flipped on the news, and turned on the equipment in my home office.
The mid-day news highlight on Bloomberg TV at about fifteen minutes after noon today was to say that gold was down sharply, over fifty dollars, because of the Swiss gold referendum vote.
Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, December 01, 2014
2015 Will See the Renewal of Gold's Secular Bull Market / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
Past performance does not guarantee future performance, as they say, but Jordan Roy-Byrne, CMT, editor and publisher of The Daily Gold Premium, is persuaded that the bottom in gold is no more than a couple of months away. And after that, look out. In this interview with The Gold Report, Roy-Byrne says that his study of gold's history explains why gold could retest $1,900 per ounce by the end of 2016 before going parabolic.
The Gold Report: After falling to $1,137 per ounce ($1,137/oz), gold has rallied to $1,200/oz. Has the fabled bottom finally been reached, or will we see one final selloff?
Read full article... Read full article...