Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Thursday, March 02, 2017

Oil Majors' Costs Have Risen 66% Since 2011 / Commodities / Oil Companies

By: OilPrice_Com

The oil majors reported poor earnings for the fourth quarter of last year, but many oil executives struck an optimistic tone about the road ahead. Oil prices have stabilized and the cost cutting measures implemented over the past three years should allow companies to turn a profit even though crude trades for about half of what it did back in 2014.

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

Gold Pressured By Increasing Odds of March FED Rate Hike / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Jason_Hamlin

The gold price has corrected by roughly $25 over the past few days. This pullback has been driven by increased odds of a Fed rate hike during March. Federal Reserve officials have been making hawkish comments lately, which has been supportive of the USD index and thus bearish for precious metals. After hitting a 2017 high of $1,265 on Monday, the gold price has since dropped back to $1240 today.

On Monday the odds of a March rate hike were around 40%, but they have since increased to around 70% to 80% today. New York Fed President William Dudley told CNNMoney on Tuesday that the case for raising interest rates is growing.

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

Art Market Bubble Bursting – Gauguin Value Collapses 74% To $22 Million / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: GoldCore

– Art Market Bubble Bursting?
– Russian Billionaire Takes 74% Loss On “Investment”
– $85 Million Gauguin Bought By Dmitry Rybolovlev in 2008
– Christie’s auctioned the work at its evening sale in London
– Global art sales plummet, but China rises as ‘art superpower’
– China soon to dominates global art and gold market
–  Art price volumes doubled since 2009
– As currencies debase super rich seek out stores of value
– Gold remains accessible store of value for all
– Stocks, bonds and many assets at record prices
– Gold half it’s real price in 1980

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

Next Crude Oil Price Rally? Futures Say Market Is Tightening / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: OilPrice_Com

U.S. oil inventories are at record levels, but there are a few glimmers of hope that the glut could be starting to subside.

Storing crude oil for sale at a later date is no longer profitable, as the futures curve has flattened out in recent weeks, depriving traders of a strategy that has served them well over the past few years. The market “contango,” in which front-month oil contracts trade at a discount to oil futures six months or a year out, has all but vanished. The differential must be large enough to cover the cost of storage, and for many time spreads that is no longer the case. After three years of a steep contango, storing oil simply to take advantage of the time spreads is increasingly uneconomical.

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

Gold – It’s Still All About The US Dollar / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Kelsey_Williams

The US dollar is the world’s reserve currency.  And that isn’t likely to change in any radical way, anytime soon.  Unless there is some kind of calamitous implosion of the dollar.  I am talking about outright rejection and repudiation.  And that could happen.  The problem is that there isn’t another currency that could likely take its place.  

By the time that possibility becomes a reality, any possible candidates would likely be in worse shape. This includes the Euro and Chinese Yuan.

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

NEW UNCOVERED INFORMATION: Why Central Banks Were Forced To Rig The Gold Market / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Steve_St_Angelo

According to newly uncovered information in the gold market, it provides additional evidence of why the Fed, Central Banks and the IMF were forced to RIG the gold market.  Actually, looking at this new information, I had no idea of the amount of Fed, Central Bank and IMF gold market intervention until I put all the pieces together.

Now, when I say “new information”, it pertains to new information and data that I dug up from older official documents.  While most of the folks in the precious metals community realize that the Fed and Central Banks have sold gold into the market to depress the price, this new evidence puts the gold market it in an entirely DIFFERENT LIGHT. 

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Gold Stocks Enormous Daily Slide / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2017

By: P_Radomski_CFA

Yesterday was just another period of back-and-forth movement for gold, silver, the USD Index and even the general stock market – but not for precious metals mining stocks. Gold stocks and silver stocks plunged very visibly - there are very important implications of this move and they are not bullish.

Let’s take a closer look at the charts (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com), starting with the GDX ETF (proxy for both gold and silver stocks).

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Peak Wealth and Peak Energy / Commodities / Energy Resources

By: Raul_I_Meijer

You could perhaps say that this is part 4 in a series on -America’s- peak wealth, even if it was never intended to be such a series; it just happened. First, in a February 18 essay about declining economic growth, “Not Nearly Enough Growth To Keep Growing”, I said “..the Automatic Earth has said for many years that the peak of our wealth was sometime in the 1970’s or even late 1960’s”.

That prompted a reply from long-time Automatic Earth reader Ken Latta, which he turned into an article a few days later which I published on February 23 as “When Was America’s Peak Wealth?” Ken reasoned that America’s peak wealth was sometime in the late ’50s to early 60’s.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Will Gold Prices Finally Pull Back or Continue Marching Ahead? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: MoneyMetals

Gold prices are up more than 11% since bottoming last December. Their gains last week took the gold market right up to its 50-week moving average. In 2015, attempted rallies reversed at the 50-week moving average. Could this level once again serve as a barrier to further price advances?

Either way, long-term gold bulls shouldn’t sweat this particular technical level. Major bull markets need to pull back and reconsolidate periodically.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Reasons Why Investors Should Avoid Gold ETFs / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks 2017

By: John_Mauldin

BY STEPHEN MCBRIDE : Gold may have ended 2016 on a negative note, but the yellow metal is now up 7% since January. A big contributor to its rise is the large inflows into gold exchange-traded funds (gold ETFs). In 2016, inflows into gold ETFs were the second highest on record and accounted for 34% of total investment demand.

With inflows showing continued strength in 2017, why should investors avoid gold ETFs?

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Do Gold Miners Need to Lead the Metals? / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks 2017

By: Gary_Savage

It’s a common misconception that miners always lead the metals sector. As you can see in this chart the miners often produce false signals.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

POWERFUL GOLD & SILVER COILED SPRINGS: Important Charts You Have To See / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Steve_St_Angelo

According to the fundamentals, gold and silver are severely compressed coiled springs looking for an opportunity to release their tremendous power.  Yes, it is true, the precious metals still hold a great deal of power.  Which is why their prices are constantly controlled by market intervention.

Of course, the market intervention of gold and silver didn’t start recently.  Oh no, this has been going on for quite some time.  Even though the Central Banks and Gadflies on the financial networks have been able to BAMBOOZLE the public into believing gold is a “Barbarous relic”, fundamentals and the laws of nature can’t be broken forever… as serious consequences normally follow.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Underperformance in Gold Stocks Argues for Interim Peak / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks 2017

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

The early stages of Gold bull markets (this one included) are characterized by strong outperformance from the miners. They will lead the metals and turning points and register strong outperformance. We saw that in the early 2000s, late 2008 to early 2009 and we have seen it again over the past year. During the recent rebound, the miners rallied back to the “Trump” resistance while Gold is not yet close to doing so. However, unfortunately for bulls, while Gold is now pushing higher above key levels, the gold stocks are lagging. This new and recent underperformance suggests the gold stocks have made an interim peak and will remain entrenched in a correction or consolidation.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Watch What Happens When Silver Price Hits $26...  / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: MoneyMetals

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome in our good friend David Morgan of The Morgan Report. David, thanks so much for joining us. It's great to have you on, as always. How are you doing so far here in 2017?

David Morgan: I'm doing pretty good, Mike. It's great to be on your show. Thank you very much.

Mike Gleason: Well, as we begin here, David, we're off to another solid start to the year in the precious metals markets. Things look quite similar today to where they did a year ago. We also saw some early momentum in 2016.

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Gold Futures Buying Yet to Start / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Zeal_LLC

Gold has powered higher in a strong new upleg since the Fed’s mid-December rate hike.  But the core group of traders who usually fuel early-upleg gains has been missing in action in recent months.  The gold-futures speculators have not done any meaningful buying since gold bottomed.  This anomaly is a very-bullish omen for gold.  Since these traders’ buying has yet to start, they need to do lots of catch-up buying.

Since the day after the Fed’s second rate hike in 10.5 years in mid-December, gold has surged 10.0% higher at best as of the middle of this week.  Naturally these strong gains were really amplified by the gold miners’ stocks.  The leading GDX VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF blasted 34.6% higher over that same short span, trouncing the broad-market S&P 500’s mere 1.4% gain!  The gold sector is really shining.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Gold Up 9%, Silver Up 14% YTD - Trump, Le Pen, Hard Brexit, Currency Wars Support / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks 2017

By: GoldCore

• Gold up 1.5% in euros and dollars this week
• Silver up 1.4% this week and now up 14.3% and is the best performing market YTD
• Gold up 9% year to date – fourth consecutive higher weekly close and breaks resistance at $1,250/oz
• Gold up 9.4% in euros year to date as Le Pen’s lead in polls widened
• Gold up another 6.4% in sterling pounds year to date as ‘Hard Brexit’ looms
• French and Dutch elections pose risks to Eurozone itself and the entire European Union project
• Euro contagion risk on renewed concerns this week about new debt crisis due to extremely high public debt and very fragile banks in Greece, Italy and Portugal

Friday, February 24, 2017

Gold, Second Fed Hike and Interest Rates / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

The narration of reflation and ‘Great Fiscal Rotation' imply that the Fed will hike interest rates in a more aggressive way in a response to accelerated growth and higher inflation. We have already covered the Fed's likely policy in 2017 in the previous edition of the Market Overview, but let's discuss the impact of higher interest rates for the U.S. dollar and gold once again. It is widely believed that higher interest rates are bullish for greenback and bearish for the yellow metal. Is that really so? Some analysts do not agree with that opinion, pointing out that the U.S. dollar did not rally during Fed tightening cycles. Therefore, the hawkish Fed may be actually good for gold, they argue.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Energy Fuels Provides 'Strong Leverage to Potentially Increasing Uranium Prices' / Commodities / Uranium

By: The_Energy_Report

Uranium has risen 30% from the very low prices of late last year and a trio of analysts agrees that Energy Fuels is in position to take advantage of a rising price environment.

Friday, February 24, 2017

The Oscars – Worth Their Weight in Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: GoldCore

• 89th Oscars to air this weekend
• Oscars have been dipped in 24 karat gold since 1929
• If the Oscars were made of solid gold they would weigh 330 ounces
• 330 ounces of gold is worth $408,210 at today’s prices (nearly €400k & £330k)
• Only some $630 worth of gold in Oscar statue
• Oscars cannot be sold due to regulations
• Steven Spielberg keeps his gold Oscar with the Academy for ‘safe-keeping’
• Shows importance of owning gold in safest ways
• Price of gold has climbed from $20.67 since the first Oscars ceremony to over $1,237 today
  

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

The Best Reasons to Buy Gold in the Age of Trump / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2017

By: MoneyMetals

Notwithstanding the strong demand for gold and silver globally, buying activity in the U.S. retail market for physical bullion has fallen noticeably in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory. And retail selling in the U.S. has increased. The bullion markets have entered a new phase.

The two terms of President Obama included the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, zero interest rate policy from the Federal Reserve, and multiple rounds of Quantitative Easing. Reasons to buy silver and gold were plentiful. Today, the reasons to diversify into gold and silver are as strong as ever, but they're perhaps less obvious to the average retail buyer in the U.S.