Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Gold Bugs Response to Money Printing / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: Adrian_Ash

What gold investors think of money printing, inflation, and the vulgar crooks behind them...

Back in the final, dying days of 2012, Paul Tustain here at BullionVault offered a little fable to explain why money exists, how it is created by banks today, and why things could get very ugly tomorrow.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Gold and Quantitative Easing: Inflation All Over Again? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: P_Radomski_CFA

Perhaps you have heard that the Fed is printing money to get out of the crisis and that such actions cannot possibly end other than in even more money being printed and in the dollar losing its ability to buy you tangible assets. In our essay on gold and the dollar collapse we pointed out that since 1970 the debt numbers have gone up more than 40-fold (!). In 2002, future Fed chairman Ben Bernanke noted that "the U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press (or today, its electronic equivalent), that allows it to produce as many U.S. dollars as it wishes at no cost." In keeping with these words, Bernanke has played an important role in the introduction of three rounds of what is known today as quantitative easing (QE) - programs expanding the money supply beyond the usual. The bill for QEs is $2.25 trillion and counting. As of January 17, 2013, U.S. debt totaled $16.4 trillion. These extraordinary numbers call for a deeper analysis and today we focus on what QE actually is.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Gold & Silver Jump on Weak US Data / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: Adrian_Ash

GOLD and silver jumped to 4-session highs above $1674 and $31.65 per ounce respectively Wednesday lunchtime in London, gaining as new data showed the US economy unexpectedly shrinking in late 2012.

US stock-market indices held flat near 5-year highs, while the EuroStoxx 50 was unchanged near 18-month highs despite news that Spain's GDP shrank by 0.7% in the last 3 months of 2012.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Swiss Banks Offer Allocated Gold and Silver Accounts / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: GoldCore

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,666.25, EUR 1,230.70, and GBP 1,057.20 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,660.50, EUR 1,235.12, and GBP 1,057.17 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $31.36/oz, €23.25/oz and £19.25/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,690.00/oz, palladium at $754.00/oz and rhodium at $1,200/oz.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Why the Fed Needs Golden Handcuffs / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: Jan_Skoyles

Jan Skoyles looks at how 100 years of the Federal Reserve system has affected asset prices, from the Dow Jones Industrial Average to the gold price. Read on to find out what happened in the last century to cause prices to rocket and what the Federal Reserve had to do with it.

This year the US Federal Reserve System will celebrate its 100-year existence thanks to the signing of the Federal Reserve Act in December 1913.

The Federal Reserve System was set up in response to a series of financial crises and ‘panics’, in the hope that it would redress the financial system’s shortcomings.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Why Doomsayers Are Wrong About Crude Oil Prices, Up 11% Since December / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Money_Morning

Dr. Kent Moors writes: The stock market is not the only thing that is up. Crude oil prices have jumped as well rising faster than the S&P for the past month.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) next month futures contract prices for crude oil on the NYMEX increased again last week. That marked the seventh consecutive week oil prices have gained, the first time that has happened since 2009. Overall, WTI pricing level has risen 11% since mid-December.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

What the Narrowing WTI/Brent Crude Oil Price Gap Means for Investors / Commodities / Oil Companies

By: The_Energy_Report

Increasing pipeline capacity in the U.S. is expected to help close the troubling price differential between West Texas Intermediate and Brent prices. In this interview with The Energy Report, newsletter editor and international stock market strategist Elliott Gue discusses how this trend and other developments are affecting investment prospects, sharing some favorite names with upside potential.

The Energy Report: U.S. oil prices hit their third peak of 2012 soon after your last interview with us, then bottomed around $85 per barrel ($85/bbl) in early November. Now they're back in the mid-$90s. What's causing the recent strength?

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Blatant Price Manipulation Takes Place Every Day in Crude Oil Markets / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: EconMatters

License to steal

Every single day the oil market is manipulated, it is easy to see, right out in the open, and nobody does anything about it. It literally is like having a license to rob banks right in front of everybody, including the armed security guards.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

German Gold Repatriation Is Victory For Transparency And GATA / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: GoldCore

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,660.50, EUR 1,235.12, and GBP 1,057.17 per ounce.
Yesterday’s AM fix was USD 1,656.75, EUR 1,232.43, and GBP 1,052.77 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $31.09/oz, €23.23/oz and £19.84/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,675.50/oz, palladium at $737.00/oz and rhodium at $1,200/oz.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Gold Bearish in Short Term Outlook as Fed Meeting Looms / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: Ben_Traynor

WHOLESALE Gold Bullion prices climbed back above $1660 an ounce Tuesday morning, broadly in line with where they ended last week, as stocks and commodities fell slightly and the Dollar ticked higher against the Euro ahead of tomorrow's interest rate decision from the US Federal Reserve.

"We are seeing a technical rebound following a few days of price decline," one trader in Shanghai told newswire Reuters this morning.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Real Reason Germany Wants its Gold Back / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: Money_Morning

Peter Krauth writes: After spending more than 50 years in foreign hands, Germany's gold is finally going home.

In a recent watershed decision the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank, has decided at least half of its gold should be held in its own vaults.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Commodity Resource Stock Investors Can Expect Sunnier Days Ahead / Commodities / Resources Investing

By: Frank_Holmes

During the current commodity supercycle, there have been occasions--too many to count--when investor psyche has been damaged by reports about slowing U.S. growth, a hard landing in China or a debt crisis in Europe. Yet just behind the gloom, significant and positive trends are taking hold, causing the storms to start dissipating.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Betting on Mediterranean Oil and Gas Shale / Commodities / Shale Oil and Gas

By: OilPrice_Com

The Mediterranean has joined the shale game, but as most of Europe's Mediterranean countries drag their feet, all eyes are on Israel, Turkey, and Algeria.

For Israel, it will be a slow road without the majors.

For Algeria, it's full speed ahead, in theory--but the foreign interest is just dabbling for now due to a lack of shale infrastructure.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

How to Pick the Best Gold Bullion Mining Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: InvestmentContrarian

Sasha Cekerevac writes: Many investors in gold bullion have become increasingly worried due to the lack of price appreciation lately. Even though there has been an aggressive monetary policy initiative by the Federal Reserve, gold bullion and mining stocks in the sector have declined.

Obviously, no one can predict the future; it’s impossible to know for sure where gold bullion, or mining stocks in general, will be in the future.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Fracking - U.S. Going Down The Wrong Road / Commodities / Water Sector

By: Robert_M_Williams

Some things are so sad that you have to laugh. One of the big rallying cries in Washington is that we’ll make the US ‘oil independent’ in a decade or two, meaning we’ll no longer have to depend on foreign imports. Of course it’s typical of Washington that no one tells you what the cost of such a bold venture will be, and I’m not necessarily talking about the dollar cost either. The supposed key to breaking the shackles of foreign oil is a process called “fracking”. Fracking is a process that injects a mixture of water and rock-shattering chemicals (all benign, according to industry) into an underground shale formation with the goal of opening fissures in the rock that allow hydrocarbons to flow to the surface.

Monday, January 28, 2013

What Past and Future Speculative Bubbles Indicate for Gold and Silver! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: DeviantInvestor

This is not a prediction of future prices of gold and silver; it is an indication of what could happen in a speculative bubble environment based on the history of previous bubbles.

I’ll summarize a simple analysis of past bubbles.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Crude Oil and Energy Stocks Trend Forecast / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Crude oil has been trading ways for the past year between the 2011 high and low. The trading range through 2012 has been contracting with a series of lower highs and higher lows. This pennant formation because it is taking place after an uptrend is a bullish pattern with $110 and possibly even $140+ per barrel in the next 6-18 months.

If you look at the weekly investing chart of crude oil the key support and resistance levels area clearly marked. A breakout of the white pennant will trigger a move to the next support or resistance level. And judging from the positive economic numbers not only form the USA but globally the odds are increased for the $110+ price target to be reached sooner than later.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Is "Saudi America" Oil Becoming a Reality? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Money_Morning

Tony Daltorio writes: U.S. energy independence has been a dream since the oil embargoes of the 1970s. But this vision of a "Saudi America" has always been just a dream.

Investors and non-investors alike started talking in earnest about realizing that dream last November. That was after the International Energy Agency's (IEA) latest World Energy Outlook said that the U.S. would overtake both Saudi Arabia and Russia in oil output by the second half of this decade.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Central Bank Gold Buying Frenzy / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: Money_Morning

Tony Daltorio writes: Anyone investing in gold should recall that before the financial crisis in 2008 central banks were dumping the yellow metal - when it was trading for less than half of where gold prices are today.

But that certainly has changed in recent years.

In 2012, the world's central banks added the most gold to their reserves since 1964. Net official gold purchases added up to 536 metric tons, a gain of 17.4% from the previous year according to a report from Thomson Reuters GFMS. The estimate from the World Gold Council for such purchases is similar at 500 metric tons.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Russian Gold Reserves Up 8.5%, Palladium Reserves “Exhausted” / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2013

By: GoldCore

Today’s AM fix was USD 1,656.75, EUR 1,232.43, and GBP 1,052.77 per ounce.
Friday’s AM fix was USD 1,670.25, EUR 1,243.39, and GBP 1,058.93 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $30.90/oz, €23.08/oz and £19.74/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,689.00/oz, palladium at $741.00/oz and rhodium at $1,200/oz.