Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, October 29, 2021
Shrinking US Crude Reserves Might Confirm the Trend Now! / Commodities / Crude Oil
Oil prices rose again on Tuesday, approaching multi-year highs amid concerns over steadily shrinking US crude reserves.
Fundamental Analysis
U.S. API Weekly Crude Oil Stock:
Friday, October 29, 2021
The History of Gold’s Pavlovian Narrative / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Precious metals expert Michael Ballanger delves into the Federal Reserve's actions going back decades that affect the price of gold.
One of the benefits (or luxuries) of being removed from the commuting rat-race of my earlier life is the ability to devote large swaths of free time to reading – to the acquisition of either new sources of knowledge or new frameworks of opinion, neither of which can be trusted but both of which may be useful.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2021
Food Prices & Farm Inputs Getting Hard to Stomach / Commodities / Food Crisis
Thanksgiving is a time to appreciate the food on our tables, but that probably isn’t stopping a lot of people from grumbling about how expensive the turkey and all the fixings have become.
According to Statistics Canada, food prices are up 2.5% over the past year, but that may be underestimating the impact of inflation. New research from Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, quoted by BNN Bloomberg, shows that food inflation in Canada is closer to 5%, well above the normal 1-2%.
Among food categories, meat prices stand out as rising the most, with Stats Canada noting a 10% increase for these products over the past six months. Nearly half of Canadians, 49%, say they have reduced their purchases of Alberta meat, while a majority of consumers acknowledge cutting back on it since the start of the year. The higher number of vegetarians may be due to economic reasons as much as concerns over animal cruelty.
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Monday, October 25, 2021
S&P 500 Stirs the Gold Pot / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
With the S&P 500 back at its all-time highs, gold stopped lagging behind. However, how long can this unsustainable growth last?
The FOMO Rally
While the S&P 500 has demonstrated a resounding ability to shake off bad news, an epic divergence has developed between positioning and economic expectations. And while ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) keeps sentiment near the high-end of its range, Q3 DP growth is projected near the low-end of its range.
For example, while the Atlanta Fed’s third-quarter GDP growth estimate was north of 5% in early September, the bank reduced the estimate to 1.3% on Oct. 5. Moreover, with the outlook even worse now, the Atlanta Fed cut its Q3 GDP growth estimate to 0.5% on Oct. 19.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
To Be or Not to Be: How the Evergrande Crisis Can Affect Gold Price / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Evergrande is on the brink of bankruptcy. Will gold prices collapse together with the real estate developer or benefit from its default?Generals are always prepared to fight the last war, while economists are always prepared to fight the last recession. But what if the next economic crisis doesn’t start in the US financial sector, but in China’s real estate?
Naturally, I refer to Evergrande, a Chinese developer with total liabilities of more than $300 billion — around 2% of China’s GDP! A default of one of China’s largest and most indebted companies could entail significant repercussions for the global economy.
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Saturday, October 23, 2021
Gold Mining Stocks Q3 2021 / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
The gold miners’ latest quarterly earnings season will soon get underway, with their full Q3’21 results due out by mid-November. These fundamental reports are invaluable to traders, revealing how companies are actually faring operationally and financially. Despite Fed-tightening fears hammering gold and gold stocks last quarter, the miners are likely to collectively report outstanding results further lowering their valuations.
After a rough stretch technically this past summer, gold-stock sentiment remains down in the dumps. This battered sector has few bulls left, with the vast majority of speculators and investors either ignoring the gold miners or despising them. This overwhelmingly-bearish psychology resulted from a sharp gold-stock selloff between early June to late September. That trying time tested the mettle of contrarian traders.
The gold miners weren’t market pariahs earlier this year. Their leading sector benchmark, the GDX VanEck Gold Miners ETF, powered 28.4% higher in just 2.5 months between early March to mid-May. That solid young upleg was starting to win some converts, with herd sentiment shifting back towards bullish. Unfortunately that promising start was torpedoed by extreme gold-futures selling on Fed-tightening fears.
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Saturday, October 23, 2021
Gold calmly continues cobbling its Handle, Miners lay in wait / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
You see, there is all this noise out there. It comes mostly from inflationists touting gold in the same breath as copper, as oil, and as commodities of all flavors (and aside from gold and to a degree, silver, those flavors are cyclical).
But you also see, gold is counter-cyclical in its best suit. You see on this monthly chart that gold has been forming its Handle to the bullish Cup ever since the inflation trades came to the fore in the summer of 2020. Therefore, you see that those touting gold and inflation together have been wrong for over a year now (and counting).
For those dealing in reality instead of dogma, gold is a candidate to break the Handle at any time. Then it would be off to the target at 3000+ over the course of a year or more. But reality holds another option as well, and that is to finish the Handle making lower.
So why not tune out the perma-pompoms in real time, realize that the thing is bullish, but the trigger is either coming sooner or later? We are doing that more focused work in NFTRH and associated updates every week and will be on the spot when the proper signals engage.
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Friday, October 22, 2021
Extreme Ratios Point to Gold and Silver Price Readjustments / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Kicking the can down the road is the new national pastime. Every time the government’s bills come due, officials at the Treasury Department find creative ways of paying them with money they don’t have.
One measure of just how overextended the United States has become financially is the debt to GDP ratio. For most of the country’s history, excluding temporary wartime blips, net general government debt tended to be less than 50% of the economy.
As recently as the early 1970s, debt as a percentage of GDP came in at under 25%. By the early 1980s, it grew to over 30% and fiscal hawks became concerned. In the 1990s, it climbed to over 40% and concern started morphing into alarm.
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Thursday, October 21, 2021
Inflation Advances, and So Does Gold — Except That It Doesn’t / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Inflation accelerated again in September, and gold prices (finally!) reacted positively. Bad news: the rally was short-lived.Unfortunately, I was right. One month ago, when commenting on the CPI readings for August, I wrote that inflation “doesn’t have to go away anytime soon” and that the economic developments suggest that “inflation isn’t disappearing just yet.” And here we are, one month later, with inflation accelerating again.
Indeed, the latest BLS report on inflation shows that the CPI rose 0.4% in September after increasing 0.3% in August. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy prices, also accelerated to 0.2% in September from 0.1% in the preceding month.
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Gold Price Slowly Going Nowhere / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
“Gold going nowhere” seems to be a reasonable description of recent price action in the metals markets.
Below is a daily chart of GLD for the past year…
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Crude Oil Is in the Fast Lane, But Where Is It Going? / Commodities / Crude Oil
What’s the price level exit for the black gold?
The new front month contract (as we switched now to Dec’21) for WTI Crude Oil futures closed the week at $82 per barrel on Friday (Oct. 15th).
Fundamentally, nothing seems to be able to stop, in the short term, the surge in crude oil prices which continued to rise on Friday amid concerns over supply, since the WTI hit a new high in almost seven years.
In addition, the slight decline of the US dollar may signify a more marked optimism of the markets in the perspectives of a gradual recovery of the global economy.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Gold Mining Stocks: Will Investors Dump the Laggards? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2021
Mining stocks were picked up by investors in the latest bullish wave. But these bad performers may be dumped just as quickly as they were bought.
After the HUI Index rallied back above the neckline of its bearish head & shoulders pattern, a new bull market for mining stocks has finally begun. Or has it? Well, after an identical development occurred in 2000, the HUI Index soon invalidated the breakout (and once again confirmed the breakdown) and a sharp decline followed.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Prices Rising as New Dangers Point to Hard Assets / Commodities / Inflation
A big week for precious metals markets as inflation pressures push consumer prices to painful new heights.
On Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department reported that inflation at the wholesale level is up 8.6% from a year ago. That’s the steepest annual advance since the data started being reported.
Of course, Americans who have shopped at a grocery store recently or tried to rent or buy a car don’t need to read a government report to discover that prices are surging. In many respects, inflation is even worse than reported officially.
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021
It’s not just Copper; GYX indicated cyclical the whole time / Commodities / Copper
Copper makes the headlines, but GYX has been bullish all along; gold awaits its time as the message from metals land is bullish, risk ‘on’ and cyclical
While copper went through its correction we have been noting each week in NFTRH that the Industrial Metals index, GYX had never aborted its bullish stance. Trends remained up and the index price held the SMA 50’s intermediate trend all the while copper (CPER, which I hold, in lower panel) worked through its summer correction.
The Industrial Metals are a primary indicator of cyclical inflation and by extension, economic reflation.
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Monday, October 18, 2021
Gold Stocks Bouncing Hard / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
The battered gold stocks are bouncing hard, blasting higher over the past couple weeks! That’s despite the Fed still looking to soon start slowing the pace of its epic money printing. Fed-tightening fears had weighted heavily on the precious-metals realm since June. Gold stocks’ sharp rally confirms they have started mean reverting much higher after withering capitulation selling, portending massive gains coming.
As a professional speculator and newsletter guy for over two decades now, herd sentiment never ceases to amaze me. The vast majority of traders have no perspective, just a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately mentality on the markets. That foolish self-imposed myopia greatly limits their gains, all but guaranteeing they will fail to buy low then sell high. Succumbing to popular greed and fear usually leads to the opposite.
The leading gold-stock benchmark and trading vehicle remains the GDX VanEck Gold Miners ETF. Its price trends reflect prevailing gold-stock psychology. Between mid-May to late September, the major gold stocks per GDX dropped 27.1% in 4.4 months. Nearly all those demoralizing losses accrued across just several brief episodes. And they were all triggered by heavy gold-futures selling on Fed-tightening fears.
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Monday, October 18, 2021
Beware, Gold Bulls — That’s the Beginning of the End / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Strong words, I know. Can I back them up? Well, what we see now – looking at various markets – does indeed look like the start of gold’s end
– The Oracle in Matrix Revolutions, 2003
The counter-trend rally has probably just ended, and the final big downswing has probably just started. This “beginning” of the final downswing is, in my opinion, the beginning of the final part of the prolonged sideways trend in gold that started in 2011. In the case of silver and mining stocks, that’s likely the final part of the decline that started back then.
These are strong words – I know. Let’s see if I can back them up.
First of all, I’ve been writing about the analogy between 2013 and now for many weeks now, and you can read about these analogies in this week’s flagship analysis. This key link remains intact. The charts given below confirm that from the short-term point of view.
Monday, October 18, 2021
Gold Price Flag Suggests A Big Rally May Start Soon / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
As precious metals traders have waited out this extended sideways/downward price contraction in price over the past 14+ months, a very broad Pennant/Flag price formation is nearing an APEX level which suggests Gold may begin a new rally phase over the next 60+ days. Support near $1675 is a critical price level that has been tested three times over the past 8 months. The true APEX of the Pennant/Flag price formation will be reached near November 15, 2021 – nearly 30 days before the US Debt Ceiling issue will become another big issue in Washington DC.
Gold Price Flag Initiated After The $1675 Level Based In March 2021
Let’s start with this Gold Daily Chart. I’ve drawn an upper line from the peak price level, in August 2020, across the recent highs in June 2021. Additionally, I’ve drawn a lower line from the lows near September 2020 across a series of price levels that are acting as support. These two major price channels have converged into a Pennant/Flag type of price formation recently.
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Sunday, October 17, 2021
The Gold Price And Inflation / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
An understanding of the relationship between between the gold price and inflation requires historical observation and factual understanding. Below are three specific statements that are rooted in historical fact…
1) GOLD IS REAL MONEY
Lots of things have been used as money during five thousand years of recorded history. Only gold has stood the test of time. It has earned its role as real money because it is the only thing which meets the three specific criteria for money: a measure of value, a medium of exchange, and a store of value.
Gold is and has been easily incorporated into recognizable forms and amounts for use within various standards of weight and measure. Also, gold is scarce, malleable, indestructible and beautiful.
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Sunday, October 17, 2021
Went Long the Crude Oil? Beware of the Headwinds Ahead… / Commodities / Crude Oil
Falling oil demand and bearish US inventories are not of any good to WTI investors. However, a deeper slide might be a great place to enter the trade…
Fundamental Analysis
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has downgraded its estimate of world oil demand for 2021. The demand has been lower than expected so far despite strong prospects for the end of the year.
In fact, in its monthly report, the cartel estimates that oil demand will rebound by 5.82 million barrels per day (mb/d) this year, while it forecast 5.96 mb/d last month.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Crimex Silver: Murder Most Foul / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
Precious metals expert Michael Ballanger decries last week's manipulations in the silver market. Anyone schooled in the Canadian educational system in the 1960s is by default familiar with William Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet about a Danish prince that seeks revenge upon his uncle who was believed to have murdered his father to seize the Danish throne. As students forced to utilize a learning method called “rote,” we had to memorize literally the entire scene where the ghost of the murdered king utters those immortal words “Murder most foul.” Claimed to be the “most-filmed” of all literary works, Hamlet was also the genesis of Bob Dylan’s 17-minute-long ballad whose topic was JFK’s assassination in Dallas in November 1963, an event virtually every baby-boomer remembers vividly.
"Last Wednesday, traders watched an aberration, a deformity in the principles of “best price possible.”
They should also add September 29, 2021, to the list of notable murders because the victim this time was the integrity of the Comex trading arena (or “theater” in honor of Willie Shakespeare). To an even greater degree, it marked the final death of any respect or reverence for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) because between the Crimex “exchange” and the CFTC, the rare remaining believers in free-market capitalism were led to slaughter by a mob of hedge funds that decided to take full and blatant advantage of the lack of regulatory oversight in order to pad their bonus pools the second-to-last trading day of the third quarter of 2021.
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