Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Thursday, May 22, 2014
Seven Things You May Not Know About Coal / Commodities / Coal
The days of tossing another lump on the fire to keep warm are behind most of us, but coal is still vital to keep our modern computers, air conditioners, and even cars humming. How much do you know about one of the world’s most indispensable commodities?
#1. Before turning into coal, layers of ancient swamp bed transition through another familiar carbon compound in as little as 9,000 years. That’s peat.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Will Central Banks Need to Buy Gold Back from The Market? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Gold Leasing - to what extent
There is a belief that central bank gold in the custody of the world's leading central banks such as the Fed, the Bank of England and the Banque de France has been leased out to the market. Central Banks have confirmed this, but it remains a source of contention. Even where the gold of the world's central banks are held in the world's leading central banks in a custodial arrangement this is so and it is reasonable to assume that this could not be done without the gold's owner's permission. This is what we do know;
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Wednesday, May 21, 2014
The Birth of a New Palladium Bull Market / Commodities / Palladium
If I asked you why you think I’m bullish on platinum and palladium, you’d probably point to the strikes in South Africa, the world’s largest producer of platinum. Or maybe the geopolitical conflicts with Russia, the largest supplier of palladium. Maybe you’d even mention that some technical analysts say the palladium price has “broken out” of its trading range.
These are all valid points—but they’re reasons why a trader might be bullish. When the strikes end, or Russia ends its aggression, or short-term price momentum eases, they’ll sell.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Gold Price - A 40 Year Perspective / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
In broad terms, gold was in a bull market during the late 1960s and 70s, a bear market during the 80s and 90s, and back in a bull market since 2001. The important questions are:
- Did gold reach a generational peak in 2011 and subsequently turn down for a decade or two?
Or
- Did gold reach an intermediate top in 2011 based on QE, dollar weakness, and high demand, correct for 2.5 years, and then begin a rally likely to persist through the end of the decade?
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Gold Price Bearish Reversal Ahead / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Gold is moving sideways in 1268-1331 range for more than a month between two contracting trend-lines that make a shape of a triangle. We are looking at a running triangle in wave (b) that can be near completion as rise from 1276 is already in three legs that represents wave e), final leg in the pattern. With that in mind, traders should be aware of a bearish reversal down in wave (c) towards 1220/40 especially once 1277 and pattern support will give way.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Crude Oil Stocks Change of Trend or Just a Correction? / Commodities / Oil Companies
In the previous week, crude oil moved higher after pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine voted in favor of self rule in a weekend referendum. These circumstances fueled fears that the conflict may escalate further and trigger more sanctions against Russia, affecting Russian oil shipments. At this point, it’s worth noting that worries over this issue have kept oil prices above the level of $100 in recent weeks. Nevertheless, although the U.S. and the European Union imposed two rounds of sanctions, they didn’t disrupt shipments from Russia. The situation, however, deteriorated slightly as the EU expanded sanctions (targeting two Crimean companies and 13 people to aim at corporations rather than individuals) last Monday. In reaction to this news, Russia reiterated that it could cut off Kiev's natural gas supplies and informed the EU in the following days that it would stop natural-gas deliveries to Ukraine on June 1 unless it receives payments for past-due amounts. Ukraine said it is preparing to pay $4 billion to Gazprom but hopes to negotiate lower prices.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Time Is the Trigger for Equities and Gold Bullion / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014
Charles Oliver, lead portfolio manager with the Sprott Gold and Precious Minerals Fund, believes the only thing between investors and bigger investment returns on precious metals equities and bullion, especially silver, is time. In this interview with The Gold Report, Oliver discusses silver and gold demand drivers, as well as portfolio ideas that figure to get bigger with time as the trigger.
The Gold Report: "Sell in May and go away" is a common investing axiom but does it have any validity?
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Monday, May 19, 2014
Crude Oil Price At Crossroads / Commodities / Crude Oil
On Friday, crude oil gained 0.61% as strong U.S. economic data and ongoing worries over the crisis in Ukraine weighted on the price. Thanks to these circumstances, light crude came back above $102, but does this growth change the short-term outlook for the commodity?
On Friday, better-than-expected numbers from the housing sector gave crude oil a support. The Census Bureau reported that U.S. building permits rose 8% to 1.080 million units last month (while analysts had expected an increase to 1.010 million units in April) and the Commerce Department showed that U.S. housing starts rose 13.2% last month to 1.072 million units, beating expectations of 980,000 gain (it was the largest increase in five months).
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Monday, May 19, 2014
Silver Price at Critical Support / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Briefly: In our opinion speculative short positions (half) are justified from the risk/reward perspective in gold, silver, and mining stocks.
The previous week started quite favorably for precious metals bulls, but as the week progressed, the situation became less bullish, and finally we saw some bearish signs. Overall, the previous week didn’t change much. Let’s take a closer look (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
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Sunday, May 18, 2014
How Long Can Phase II of the Gold Pool Be Sustained / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
"The London Gold Pool was the pooling of gold reserves by a group of eight central banks in the United States and seven European countries that agreed on 1 November 1961 to cooperate in maintaining the Bretton Woods System of fixed-rate convertible currencies and defending a gold price of US$35 per troy ounce by interventions in the London gold market.Read full article... Read full article...
The central banks coordinated concerted methods of gold sales to balance spikes in the market price of gold as determined by the London morning gold fixing while buying gold on price weaknesses. The United States provided 50% of the required gold supply for sale. The price controls were successful for six years until the system became no longer workable. The pegged price of gold was too low and runs on gold, the British pound, and the US dollar occurred and France decided to withdraw from the pool. The London Gold Pool collapsed in March 1968.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Gold Price Triangle Pattern Near Completion / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Gold is moving sideways in 1268-1331 range for more than a month between two contracting trend-lines that make a shape of a triangle. We are looking at a running triangle in wave (b) that can be near completion as rise from 1276 is already in three legs that represents wave e), final leg in the pattern. With that in mind, traders should be aware of a bearish reversal down in wave (c) towards 1220/40 especially once 1277 and pattern support will give way.Read full article... Read full article...
Saturday, May 17, 2014
Future For Gold As Uncertain As It Is Certain. Silver Will Lead/Follow / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Based on several thousand years of history, and based on the last 100 years of fiats, gold will continue to rise as a store of value, and almost all fiats will fail, massively. Which fiats will continue? The Yuan and the Ruble, for two. The Panama Balboa is another possibility, but Panama will have to do some sorting out to get rid of the fiat US dollar, its paper currency. The official money of account is the Panama balboa, but it ceased printing around 1941, in favor of the US dollar. This little Central American country has been making preparations to disassociate from the fiat Federal Reserve Notes.
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Friday, May 16, 2014
Silver Stealth Buying / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Silver has suffered as a market pariah this year, dragging along doggedly near major lows. Investors have seemingly abandoned it to chase the Fed’s general-stock-market levitation, an affliction plaguing most of the alternative-investment realm. But rather provocatively, silver buying remains quite strong even in this dreary sentiment wasteland. This stealth buying will likely explode once gold starts running.
After silver plunged 35.6% in 2013 and hit 2.8-year lows, it’s easy to understand why it remains deeply out of favor today. With the Fed’s extreme money printing and jawboning dramatically catapulting general stocks higher, mainstreamers forgot about alternative investments including silver. But for the brave contrarians who would rather buy low than buy high, silver remains an incredibly alluring investment.
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Friday, May 16, 2014
Gold and Silver Important Price-Volume Link / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
Briefly: In our opinion speculative short positions (half) are justified from the risk/reward perspective in gold, silver, and mining stocks.
The situation in the currency and precious metals markets developed to a large extent as we had outlined it yesterday. The USD Index paused, but gold, silver, and mining stocks caught up a bit in terms of the reaction to the previous dollar’s moves. Let’s take a closer look (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com).
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Friday, May 16, 2014
Firmer Tone for Gold and Silver Prices / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
This week started with a severe markdown in gold and silver prices when markets opened in the Far East on Monday morning, taking gold down $12 to $1278 and silver only 12 cents to $19.03. The clue in this was the resilience of silver, which hardly moved: it was an attack on the gold price presumably designed to take out stop-losses.
From there precious metals never looked back. Interestingly, for the first time in a long time, prices advanced in London dealings, indicating they were being driven more by physical demand than trading in US futures. This is hardly a surprise given that GOFO is still negative for up to three months forward and has been in backwardation every day since 3rd April.
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Friday, May 16, 2014
Are Silver Prices Set Up for Another Heartbreak? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
For long term investors and precious metals observers, the range-bound price action has rubbed salt into the open wound of short price sentiment. That is, if there is anyone left to remember the move up to $50 in 2011.
How long prices can remain relatively quiet and range-bound (in the face of growing fundamentals, geopolitical tension, and the rising awareness of inflation) is anyone's guess.
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Friday, May 16, 2014
Potential Catalyst for Gold and Silver Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014
Precious Metals continue to be in a long bottoming process that began last summer. Though many quality juniors have already bottomed and while GDX, GDXJ and SIL probably won’t see new lows, the broad sector as a whole is struggling to push out of this long bottoming process. Traders always say price is all that matters and who cares about fundamentals or the why. However, the most astute traders and investors look beyond a simple tool or single sphere of analysis. With respect to precious metals, negative real rates and the direction of inflation are the driving forces. Deflation is a catalyst for precious metals because policy makers react by suppressing real rates. Rising inflation is a catalyst and especially when it causes real rates to go negative or more negative. I will explain why this could be the catalyst for the revival of precious metals sector.
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Friday, May 16, 2014
So How Goes the War on Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
“I can’t remember the exact quote but when I used to trade and Mr. Volcker was Fed chairman, he said something like ‘gold is my enemy, I’m always watching what gold is doing’, we need to think why he made a statement like that. If you’re a central banker or one of the congressmen or senators, watch what gold is doing because this is a no-confidence vote in fiscal and dollar policy.”– Rick Santelli, CNBC
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Thursday, May 15, 2014
Crude Oil Boom Reaches Tipping Point / Commodities / Crude Oil
Sean Brodrick writes: The tsunami of U.S. petroleum production has been underway for several years, but last month it reached a tipping point.
Global oil production plunged in March thanks to steeply lower OPEC output... while America's production soared to a 26-year high.
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Thursday, May 15, 2014
Gold Discovery of the Decade, On Sale / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014
By Louis James, Chief Metals & Mining Investment Strategist
Sell in May and go away?
Precious metals tend to exhibit a seasonal pattern to their price trends, with summer weakness that leads to strength in the fall. Add to this the fact that mineral exploration in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in Canada, enters a sort of hibernation during winter months and then reawakens in the spring. With winter drill programs already announced, we typically see less news flow starting about now until well into the summer.
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