Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Sunday, April 28, 2019
Gold and Silver End of Week Technical, CoT and Fundamental Status / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
After an interesting week and to allow more focus on charting the miners this weekend, we again offload much of the NFTRH Precious Metals segment’s content to the public site. The following is (hopefully) going to be long on charts and relatively short on words (sighs of relief palpable…).
HUI/Gold Ratio is intact to its higher lows from September. This was a logical bounce point for gold stocks. HGR needs to promptly take back the SMA 200, however.
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Saturday, April 27, 2019
Near-Record Gold Shorting / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Gold has failed to gain traction over the past couple months, normally a seasonally-strong time. That has really weighed on sentiment, leaving traders increasingly bearish. Gold investment demand has flagged dramatically with lofty stock markets spewing great euphoria. That’s given gold-futures speculators the run of the market, where they have sold aggressively including extreme shorting. But that’s actually very bullish.
Gold price action is driven by the collective trading of both investors and speculators. The former control vast amounts of capital, which dominates gold prices when it is migrating in or out. But investors’ interest in gold withers when stock markets are super-high. When stocks seemingly do nothing but rally, there’s no perceived need to prudently diversify stock-heavy portfolios with counter-moving gold. It falls out of favor.
Extreme stock-market euphoria is gold’s primary problem now, acting like kryptonite for gold investment. This week the flagship US S&P 500 broad-market stock index clawed back to a new all-time record high. That extended its monster rebound rally since late December’s near-bear lows to 24.8%! The farther the stock markets advance, the more gold is forgotten. Investors have relentlessly pulled capital back out of gold.
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Friday, April 26, 2019
Will Fed’s New Balance Sheet Policy be a Reason to Buy Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
As always, most analysts focus not on what they really should. After March FOMC meeting, everyone was talking about the more dovish dot-plot. But the Fed also announced that it will end the unwinding of its balance sheet in September. As these changes are revolutionary and may entail potentially huge consequences for the precious markets, we invite you to read our today’s article about the new Fed’s balance sheet policy and find out whether it will be positive for the gold prices.
Most analysts focus on the recent revision of the Fed’s dot-plot. This is of course very important – so we have analyzed them in the previous part of the April edition of the Market Overview – but we should not forget about very substantial changes in the US central bank’s balance sheet policy. We have described these modifications in the March 21 edition of the Gold News Monitor, but let’s now dig into the new Fed’s normalization plan.
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Friday, April 26, 2019
Precious Metals Are All At Support / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
I am not sure how much more I can add to what has been said over the last two weeks in the metals complex.
At this point in time, it is quite clear that the metals are testing support. As specifically noted about silver, the 14.60 support region is what I want to see holding as support here. While I can accept a spike and reversal of that level, a sustained break of that level opens the door to a 13 handle for a lower low bottoming in that chart.
As far as GLD is, the 119 region is the similar support region I want to see hold for a wave iv. And, in GDX, you can see we are now approaching the bottom of our support box as well.
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Thursday, April 25, 2019
Will Stephen Moore Make Gold Great Again? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Last month, Trump said that he considered Herman Cain and Stephen Moore as his picks to the Federal Reserve Board. As the former had withdrawn his name from consideration, the focus shifted to the latter. Who is Mr. Moore exactly and what would his nomination imply for the gold market?
Who Are You, Mr. Moore?
There are still two vacancies at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. It’s possible that Stephen Moore will fill one gap, which has provoked great controversy. President Trump has not officially nominated him yet, but the White House supports Moore for a seat on the Board, as Larry Kudlow, Trump’s top economic adviser, has recently reaffirmed.
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Thursday, April 25, 2019
Silver Sentiment: Is It (Your) Friend or Foe? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
The gold and silver bull markets have been on a roller coaster ride for almost two decades. Gold came to life in 2000, with silver crawling along between $4 and $5 until late 2003, making its first print above $10 in March 2006.The next two years saw the last part of a 400% up-move for those who "kept the faith," before silver dropped below $9 during the 2008 global financial meltdown.
Then it was up, up and away, as silver rocketed to nearly $50 by April 2011. By then, "everyone knew" it was going to $100.
A blogger announced he had sold his house to buy silver and advised others to do the same.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Spring Has Arrived. Will Gold also Bloom? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Recent positive news suggest the US economy spring revival. But what about gold? Will it blossom? Will the gold love trade take reins from gold as a safe haven play?
Retail Sales Surge
Last week, the government has released its latest report on the retail sector. The retail sales jumped 1.6 percent in March, the best results since September 2017, as one can see in the chart below. The change was above expectations (the economists polled by MarketWatch forecasted sales to climb 1.1 percent) and it was solid (0.9 percent) even if we set gas and autos aside.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Can Saudi Arabia Still Sway The Oil Market? / Commodities / Crude Oil
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter and OPEC's largest producer, has influenced the oil market and oil flows since the middle of the 20th century.
Shortly after the 21st century began, one of Saudi Arabia's key customers made its first steps toward becoming one of the Kingdom's main competitors on the global oil market: the United States began fracking for oil in the mid-2000s. By the end of the 2010s, the U.S. is now the world's biggest crude oil producer, having surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to claim the crown.
Sure, Saudi Arabia is one of the most important factors in global crude trade and oil market participants are lapping up every word and hint from the top oil officials in the Kingdom.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Can Gold Price Rise Without a Rate Cut? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
The downside potential in precious metals discussed last week is playing out as Gold and gold stocks have broken down technically.
The global economy appears to be firming and that is evidenced by a sustained rebound in global equity markets.
As a result, the potential for a rate cut which pushed precious metals higher is now unwinding. That has caused the breakdown in precious metals and there is more unwinding to go.
We have trumpeted the need (in precious metals) for a rate cut as a fundamental catalyst for the next bull market. But there is another scenario that plays well for Gold.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Silver’s Next Big Move / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Eight years ago this month, silver started its “next big move”. And that move continues today. It is awesome to behold. See the chart (ten-year history of silver prices) below…
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Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Silver Plays a Small but Vital Role in Every Portfolio / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Portfolio strategies like Modern Portfolio Theory and others tend to assume that market returns follow a normal distribution.
Not really.
Certain securities have high kurtosis. That is where out-of-the ordinary returns (larger or smaller) occur more frequently than the normal distribution predicts.
Of course, nobody who is stable and balanced puts 100% of their assets into something which has the possibility of extreme returns.
But risk 90 cents for the possibility of making 10 bucks? All day long.
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
Gold and Silver Give Traders Another Buying Opportunity / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
We know many of you follow our research posts and have been waiting for the Gold/Silver setup we predicted would happen near April 21~24, 2019 back in January 2019. Well, it looks like our predictions were accurate and the current downward price rotation in Gold/Silver are the opportunities of a lifetime for precious metals traders.
Our original research regarding the predicted Gold price rotation and breakout initially posted in October 2018 and was updated in January 2019. You can read our updated post here.
This research suggested, back in October 2018, that gold would rally above $1300, then stall and setup a momentum base near April 21~24, 2019. Currently, we are actively seeking entry positions in Gold, Silver and many other stock market sectors related to the metals and miners.
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Monday, April 22, 2019
Cannabis Stocks: Don't Let Your Opportunity Go Up in Smoke / Commodities / Cannabis
Here's when society expresses greater acceptance toward marijuanaIn the 1973 song "The Joker," the Steve Miller Band sang:
"I'm a joker. I'm a smoker. I'm a midnight toker."
Of course, "midnight toker" referred to pot smoking. Back then, there were plenty of midnight tokers, but most of them feared getting "busted."
Thirty years later, in 2003, the Elliott Wave Theorist predicted:
"Eventually, possession and sale of recreational drugs will be decriminalized."
Then, in July 2009, The Socionomist (the monthly publication of the Socionomics Institute, a sister organization of Elliott Wave International) published a study titled "The Coming Collapse of Modern Prohibition," which reviewed the repeal of Prohibition during the bear market psychology of the early 1930s.
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Sunday, April 21, 2019
Why Gold Has Been the Second Best Asset Class for the Last 20 Years / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Frank Holmes, CEO and chief investment officer of U.S. Global Investors, speaks to Streetwise Reports about the fundamentals for gold, his company's funds and a handful of companies on his radar screen. Streetwise Reports: Since the beginning of the year, gold has been trading fairly narrowly in the $1,300 range. What are some of the macro factors working behind this and how do you believe they'll affect the price moving forward?
Frank Holmes: When we look at macro factors at U.S. Global—and we write about them every month, in particular the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI)—we try to take this complexity and simplify it by dividing it into big chunks.
The first is commodities; 50% of all commodity demand is China, so China is very, very important. When you add the populations of China and India—"Chindia"—you get 40% of the world's population. That's a lot of food. That's a lot of clothes. That's a lot of airplanes they'll be buying for India.
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Saturday, April 20, 2019
Stock Market Euphoria Stunts Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
The great euphoria emanating from these near-record-high stock markets is breathtaking. Traders are again convinced stocks do nothing but rally indefinitely. That everything-is-awesome mindset has stunted gold’s latest upleg, since there’s no perceived need for prudently diversifying stock-heavy portfolios. But that psychology can change fast, as we saw a half-year ago. Gold investment roars back as stocks roll over.
The word “euphoria” is widely misunderstood, often confused with “mania”. The latter is when stocks rocket vertically in blowoff tops, and is defined as “an excessively intense enthusiasm, interest, or desire”. The US stock markets certainly aren’t in a mania. At its latest high last Friday, the flagship US S&P 500 broad-market stock index (SPX) had only edged up 1.2% over the past 14.5 months. That’s not parabolic.
The closest thing to a mania seen in recent years was the SPX’s 18.4% surge over just 5.3 months that led into its initial January 2018 peak. Traders were ecstatic about Republicans’ coming major corporate tax cuts, and aggressively piled into stocks. While euphoria accompanies manias, it is entirely different. It is simply “a strong feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being”. That psychology is universal today.
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Friday, April 19, 2019
Gold UUP & HUI Combo Chart…Now is Not the Time to be Complacent / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
On Tuesday of this week I posted this combo chart showing the possible small blue flag forming on the UUP ( US Dollar). This morning the price action gapped above the top rail and is now approaching the top rail of the rising wedge formation. The sixth reversal point will be completed when the top rail is hit. This is where it’s getting interesting. Many investors believe the US dollar is going to go down or collapse which could be the case. On the other hand what if the US dollar breaks out above the top rail of its August rising wedge?
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Friday, April 19, 2019
Precious Metals: Wash, Rinse… / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Before the promotional corners of the gold community start with the conspiracies, excuse making and general placing of blame everywhere but where it belongs, let’s simply note that this correction was indicated (by sentiment) as far back as February 22nd. On that day I made a post quoting three anonymous sources within the community, firing up the troops to be hyper bullish… as in a gold price of $1400 promptly before a “parabolic slingshot” on the way to $3000 off of a “gargantuan pattern” (that had not even appeared yet and was but a figment of a fertile imagination).
The quotes and targets were compliments of different sources melded together for a mouthwatering smorgasbord of greed for gold bugs to sink their teeth into. It was a classic contrary indicator as the sector was touted far and wide while already overbought and obviously bullish. It was confirmation of the greediest hopes of the greediest and/or newest, most naive gold bugs (putting aside for a minute that gold itself is not a price play, but a value play within the leverage-rigged casino called the financial markets).
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Thursday, April 18, 2019
The Notre Dame Fire: Lessons for Gold Investors / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
The Monday’s fire of Notre Dame Cathedral shocked the world. Since then, the French, the Catholics, and the architecture and art lovers hadn’t been talking about anything else. The precious metals community was less disturbed – even though it turns out that gold investors can actually learn a lot from the Notre Dame’s fire.
We have visited Paris for the first time only a month ago. Maybe this is why the images of Notre Dame being consumed by fire have aroused our emotions, even though we are not connoisseurs of architecture. Luckily, the cathedral has survived and the scale of damages is not as grave as it first seemed.
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Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Gold Market Key Message from IMF / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
The Spring Meeting of the World Bank and the IMF, during which the latter organization released its fresh World Economic Outlook, has just ended. What are the takeaways for the gold market?
Stagnation or Acceleration after the Slowdown?
In Thursday’s Gold News Monitor, we pointed out that the IMF significantly cut outlook for the Eurozone’s economic growth this year from 1.6 to 1.3 percent. But what about other economies? The IMF forecasts now 2.3 percent rise in the American GDP, 0.2 percentage point slower than it was projected in January. Global growth is now projected to be 3.3 percent, a downward revision from the 3.5 percent forecasted three months earlier. After such cuts in world economic outlook, gold should shine, shouldn’t it?
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Tuesday, April 16, 2019
Downside Risk in Gold & Gold Stocks / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
The big picture fundamentals for precious metals have been trending more bullish in recent months as expectations for the Federal Reserve went from a few rate hikes in 2019 to an expectation of a rate cut within the next 12 months. That is aligned with the peak in the 2-year yield and growing concerns over slowing growth globally.
However, that doesn’t preclude a temporary improvement in the economy and markets. China is stimulating again. Global equities have recovered and the S&P 500 is on the cusp of a new high.
All of this means a Fed rate cut in the next 12 months is less likely. Not unlikely but less likely.
Precious Metals have been trading on Fed rate expectations for a while. Higher highs in equities and some stabilization in the economy will chip away at expectations for a rate cut and as a result, some bearish price action is showing up in the precious metals sector.
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