Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Monday, April 09, 2007
War with Iran? - The Crude Oil Crisis Leads to Gold and Silver / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Julian_DW_Phillips
All is not well in the oil market. Not simply because of the demand supply pressures.
Oil supplies, to a large enough extent to exert overwhelming pressure on the oil price, reside in nations that are not only involved in conflict within themselves over their own branches of Islam, but in nations that are thoroughly disposed to loathe the West, particularly the U.S. of A.
Now add to that the wealth they themselves have in their pockets, which is sufficient to influence the flow of the U.S.$ market to its detriment, a market that is already under pressure from an over issuance of the currency to support the bleeding Trade deficit now at destructive proportions, and the potentially overwhelming surpluses in the hands of all the nations of the world.
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Monday, April 09, 2007
In Situ Recovery Uranium Mining - The Water Factor / Commodities / Uranium
By: James_Finch
Our interview with Glenn Catchpole of Uranerz Energy explains what investors should know about water's role in ISR uranium mining. Companies with an ISR project may disappoint shareholders because of the water location, or lack of water, in relation tothe ore body.
As part of our efforts to better educate not only uranium stock analysts and investors, but also the media and environmental groups, we have expanded upon last year's introduction to In Situ Recovery uranium mining with our Advanced ISR Series. Water plays an integral role for In Situ Recovery (ISR) uranium mining.
If the water is not in the right place, ISR mining can not take place. A company's ‘pounds in the ground' are nearly worthless or may have to be extracted through other means.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Commodity Markets Analysis, Meat, Gold, Corn and Peak Oil / Commodities / Inflation
By: David_Petch
Where's the Beef?? It Better be in Your Freezer - Several different things I want to address first before getting to analysis of the HUI. The first one has to do with meat. The governments do not include the price of food or energy in the core rate of inflation (soon they will be including those that lie in graveyards into their index to further “average” the price down I am sure of it) so everything that you or I have to buy in the grocery store no matter how much costs rise is not “their definition of inflation”. This is the government's way of hiding the volumes of money being created out of thin air.
The coming of Peak Oil is causing a movement in the US to produce ethanol in order to provide an alternate fuel source. The big corporations are pushing for corn because it is big money. Use of straw grass, sugar beets etc. is far more efficient in the energy balance of the production equation.
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Sunday, April 08, 2007
Will Rising World Crude Oil Prices Fuel Inflation In Volatile Times / Commodities / India
By: Submissions
Petroleum prices have started racing to $70 a barrel after staying below $60 for the better part of the winter, now coming to an end around the world. What does this portend? Does it signal that the good times are over and recession is about to be triggered in America and a number of advanced countries? The housing boom in the US is beginning to bust and a crisis is looming on the horizon. This has already created a degree of concern, if not alarm, around the world, including India.How does it affect India and the rest of the world? Because the US dollar value is being eroded and the rupee, yen, euro, Chinese and several other currencies are being valued upwards, there is an implied cushioning of the high petroleum prices, but exporters are losers in cheaper dollars as they earn fewer rupees. The worst affected are the outsourcing companies engaged in providing information technology through service centers as well as call centers, which cover a wide spectrum of the industry.
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Real Investment Returns Are What Count...SO BUY GOLD! / Commodities / Money Supply
By: Richard_J_Greene
There is no shortage of commentary in financial newspapers, hemming and hawing over such matters as GDP growth, or the CPI data, or even the same store sales of major retailers. The fact of the matter is that all such releases are virtually worthless since their unit of measure being reported is in a fluctuating measure that is constantly changing – the US dollar; (or any other paper currency for that matter).
It is akin to weighing yourself on a bathroom scale but allowing the amount of ounces in a pound to constantly fluctuate. What good would that kind of data be to anyone? Yet this is precisely what analysts and commentators debate with constantly in the financial press and on stock market shows such as CNBC.
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Could Uranium hit $1,000 a pound? / Commodities / Uranium
By: Money_and_Markets
Sean Brodrick writes : If you knew about an investment that, by conservative estimates, would increase in value 47% in the next 18 months, would you buy it?
Well, today I want to tell you about such an investment — uranium. Heck, just a few months ago, I said uranium would hit $100 per pound by the end of this year. It looks ready to hit that target this month !
In just the past year, the white-hot metal has surged 137% to $95 per pound. That's far beyond the expectations of most market analysts. So now they're rolling out new estimates — higher and higher.
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Gold Mining Companies - Why larger exploration budgets won't mean higher gold mining output / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: Adrian_Ash
AS THE TREND for spot gold prices to move higher rolls on, the big gold mining companies keep racing to re-stock their shrinking reserves.Three of the larger gold miners just said they're going to spend record sums trying to find new gold-in-the-ground. Trying to pick the winners – and selecting junior miners on the brink of receiving a hot takeover bid – might just pay off handsomely.
But don't neglect the bigger picture as you chase these short-term M&A profits. "Route One" to growing proven and probable reserves in the ground is more than likely to eat up total exploration budgets in 2008 and beyond.
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Commitment of Traders Reports Analysis - Net Commercials and the US Dollar Setup / Commodities / Technical Analysis
By: James_West
Volatility Index
VIX [ http://www.buythebottom.com/vix.html ]
Commercials are recent buyers of the VIX. Thus far, the setup looks more neutral than anything else. A classical COT setup to the long side would result if net-commercial position rose near or above 4,000 contracts.
Last week I mentioned that the VIX looked overextended to the downside and would probably retest its 10-day moving average (MA). Over the next several days, the VIX did indeed rally and is now trading above its 10-day MA in the 14 to 16 dollar range. With the bullish setup in the stock market right now, I would expect the VIX to decline over the next little while, and ultimately end up under $12. However, if we see the VIX rallying and closing above $16, that would tell me that volatility decided to stick around. Speaking of which, a move above $16 for the VIX would probably also translate into further weakness in the stock market.
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Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Permitting of New US Uranium Mines Takes Many Years / Commodities / Uranium
By: James_Finch
Permitting a uranium mine requires more than a simple application to mine. And, as we discovered, the process can take between three and six years (sometimes even longer), costing several million dollars and requiring numerous scientific studies on a company's property. This could add additional pressure to uranium prices.
Few investors and analysts have a firm grasp of the length of time environmental studies and the approvals process requires. Having visited numerous investor forums, we realized many investors believe a property is drilled and then mined, after a brief permitting period. Quite the opposite is true, as explained to us by Richard Blubaugh, environmental manager for Powertech Uranium.
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Monday, April 02, 2007
Honest Money - Gold and Silver Technical Report & Forecast / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Douglas_V_Gnazzo
Gold had a good week rallying up $11.70 to close the week out at $669 (+1.78%). It was the highest daily close of the week and the highest weekly close in 5 weeks.
The weekly chart below clearly distinguishes the long term trend line that continues to remain above its 65 week moving average. The rising trend line has support at just under $650.00, while the 65 ema comes in at $604.50.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Silver's Failure to Breakout above Resistance increases risks of a Sharp Fall / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Clive_Maund
The silver chart looks considerably less inspiring than the gold chart at this juncture, which is perhaps not so surprising as after outperforming gold last year, it has been underperforming it so far this year. On the 10-year chart the trading range that has followed the ramp from September 2005 through April last year does not look to be of sufficient duration to support another strong advance, and the uptrend channel drawn on this chart looks unsustainably steep and for these reasons the chances of a breakdown are considered to be quite high.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 01, 2007
The Gold Bull Market Remembers How Gordon Brown Sold Half of Britains Reserves at the Lowest Price / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Clive_Maund
An increasing number of goldbugs and traders are getting bewildered and frustrated at gold's pedestrian performance and refusal to break higher, even with a possible attack on Iran looming, especially as oil has been romping ahead, and are, of course, looking around for people to blame, which usually winds up being the poor old cartel, those dastardly faceless individuals whose job it is to suppress the price of gold and silver so that the financial world at large doesn't cotton on to the precarious state of the world financial system in general and the Fiat money system in particular, much less mortgaged-up-to-the-hilt Joe Sixpack, whose chief distinguishing feature is that he hasn't got a clue about anything, apart from the details of upcoming ball games etc.Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, April 01, 2007
April Uranium Price Forecast to hit $110/Pound / Commodities / Uranium
By: James_Finch
Bids are due in Corpus Christi, Texas on April 3rd for the sealed-bid auction, conducted by Mestena Uranium LLC, for another modest lot of 100 thousand pounds of U3O8. “Buyers are once again expected to compete aggressively for the material,” Nuclear Market Review (NMR) editor Treva Klingbiel wrote in the monthly edition of the nuclear industry trade magazine. “Any material offered at fixed price is highly sought after by potential buyers.”
Earlier this past week, Entergy Corp’s (ETR) director of nuclear fuel told Dow Jones MarketWatch, “There’s a period where the market is going to be very ugly from a buyer’s standpoint.” The New Orleans-based nuclear utility holds the second largest number of nuclear power plants behind Exelon Corp (EXC). Jim Malone, Exelon Corp’s nuclear fuels vice president, expects the impact of the rising uranium price to impact utilities at some unspecified future date, but not now.
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
Gold and Silver Analysis - All I Really Need to Know About the Economy I Learned in Kindergarten / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Dominick
“ Bernanke's policies, in fact, represent a paradigm shift away from a past where every boom was expected to, and had to be followed by a bust. The wording of Greenspan's now infamous "recession" comments indicate nothing more treacherous than adherence to this older, possibly even outmoded, economic philosophy .”
~ Precious Points: Lackluster, but not Tarnished , March 17, 2007
Imagine a teeter-totter. On one end is inflation, and on the other, risk of a recession. It remains to be seen which side will grow heavy first and force the Fed's hand.
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
Weekly Gold and Silver Technical Analysis Report - 1st April 2007 - Technically Precious with Merv / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Merv_Burak
Other than Monday, the week's daily gold trading activity closed either lower on the day or at the low of its daily trading range. Not activity fraught with confidence.
TECHNICAL RATING (RATE)
In my tables of technical information and ratings (at the end of these commentaries) is a column called RATE for Technical Rating. Based upon the technical information in the table I had developed a program that then took this information and tried to determine if the stock or Index is technically bullish (POS), bearish (NEG) or neutral (N).
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
FSA publishes review of the commodities market / Commodities / Stock Brokers
By: Submissions
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today published a paper which examines the recent growth in investment in commodity markets. The paper, 'Growth in Commodity Investment: risks and challenges posed for commodity market participants', concludes that markets have changed significantly bringing new issues which need to be understood and acted upon by participants.
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Saturday, March 31, 2007
The Illusion of Gold Reserves - Deep Storage, Deeper Holes, Deepest of Troubles / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Rob_Kirby
I'd like everyone to take a look at the U.S. Treasury's most recent accounting of its gold:
Current Report : January 31, 2007Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 30, 2007
Gold Forecast - Chinese rising demand affecting the gold price much more... / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Julian_DW_Phillips
The slow liberalization of the gold market is a fact of life albeit slow and not likely to see huge tonnages [like 3,000 tonnes] flow into the country quickly. But in this gold market it doesn't take huge tonnages to move the gold price.
We hear from China that 90,000 bank accounts are being opened every day. They need a bank account to qualify to buy gold [here is the control from the government and bankers over the rising gold market]. The Chinese public has indicated before that it would be happy to invest between 10 and 30% of their savings in gold, which they must now do through their bank and consequently the Central Bank. We are not even going to attempt to put a figure on what will go into gold in China, but we have to highlight one fairly dramatic likelihood:
Friday, March 30, 2007
HUI Gold Stocks Index leverage against Gold Price / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Roland_Watson
Some weeks back we looked at how the HUI index of unhedged gold producers was leveraging the price of gold. As any seasoned gold investor will know, well chosen gold mining stocks offer gearing on the rising price of gold up to many times depending on the quality and timing of the stock chosen.
However, since 2004, the HUI has failed to live up to that tag as its performance against gold has increasingly diminished until recently. To this end, we present the latest on how the HUI is doing against its main product.
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Friday, March 30, 2007
Analysis of crude oil types and Iranian shortage of refining capacity / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Elliot_H_Gue
"Water, water every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water every where, Nor a drop to drink." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Iran isn't an energy-independent country.
I'm well aware that Iran produces more than 4 million barrels of oil per day, the fourth-highest production in the world. And with the near-constant reporting about Iranian crude reserves during the past six months, I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be unaware that Iran has 132 billion barrels in proven reserves--or, at least, they claim to.