Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Breakout in Gold Price and Gold Mining Stocks! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

Lately we’ve been writing about why we expected the rebound in precious metals to continue without any serious setbacks. After a major low, sentiment can remain muted for several months even in contrast to the improving market action. Yet, a look at history shows that rebounds from major lows can continue unabated and unscathed for more than a year. The rebound in precious metals thus far appears to be following this script. It has received a further boost with the breakout in Gold yesterday and as of now, the breakout in the gold miners.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Silver Storage Myth / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Paul_Behan

I have often heard some “experts” explain how much space it takes to store physical silver in comparison to gold. For example, they say if the gold silver ratio is (GSR) is 50 to 1, it takes 50 times more space to store the physical silver over the same value of gold.  While the GSR is valid for comparing the price of the two metals, it only makes up part of the equation on the space it takes for storage. What is often overlooked is the density of the metals. The density of pure gold is 19.3 which equates to:

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The Case for Gold Right Now / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Michael_J_Kosares

With special thanks to the St. Louis Federal Reserve and its FRED charting software.
Published with permission. These charts update automatically.

'A picture is worth a thousand words'

This collection of charts is for those who do not like a lot of verbiage to justify an investment decision -- just the facts. Two primary themes drive the specific chart selections presented here:

First, it is clear that none of the factors which caused the financial crisis of 2008 have been addressed in any sustainable fashion by those charged with setting economic policy. Explosions in both the monetary base and reserve bank credit show they have simply been 'papered-over' - a far-cry from a lasting solution. In fact, one could argue (and many have) that such policies may one day fuel a second tier to the crisis even more damaging than the first.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Copper Price Breakdown Means Short Silver / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: P_Radomski_CFA

Briefly: In our opinion short speculative positions (half) in silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective.

There were basically no changes in gold, silver and mining stock charts yesterday, except for gold moving slightly higher on news about increased tensions in Ukraine. Gold's reaction was once again weak.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Three Reasons to Buy Gold Now / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: DailyGainsLetter

Mohammad Zulfiqar writes: When it comes to gold bullion prices, despite their mere 10% climb since the beginning of 2012, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see gold bullion prices increase even further. With this, companies producing or looking for the precious metal are still presenting a great buying opportunity.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Copper Price Crash / Commodities / Copper

By: Ed_Carlson

It seems like yesterday that we were being constantly barraged with stories in the media of vandals ripping up and stealing copper pipes, wires, etc. from housing projects, airports and the like. With the price of copper down over 40% from its peak in 2011 those stories are few and far between.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Gold Price 14 Years and Three Patterns / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: DeviantInvestor

Gold peaked in August of 2011 and fell erratically into December 2013.

Was that the end of the collapse, or is there more downside coming in gold prices?

Bearish Scenario: Listen to the banks who are forecasting weak prices in 2014 and thereafter. "Nothing to see here folks, the dollar has weakened drastically since 1971, gold sells for 30 times its 1971 price, but it's all good. Just move on and pretend... Gold will drop below $1000 before you can say 2016 elections..."

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Gold Price Uncertainty, the Fix and the Quantum / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Paul_Tustain

Does one of the great mysteries of the universe shed light on allegations surrounding the Gold Fix? Or is it the other way around?

When Werner Heisenberg looked at his brand new quantum formulae in 1927, he noticed something weird.

The world of very small spaces and particles is ruled by matrix mechanics, but as you may remember from your school mathematics, in matrix multiplication (A * B) * C is not the same as A * (B * C). What Heisenberg saw was that because of the difference in the two matrix products there would always be uncertainty as to key physical properties of a particle. His discovery forbids a particle from having both precisely defined motion and precisely defined position at the same time.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Gold's Bull Days Are Back? Making Green from Gold, Palladium and Pollution / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Frank_Holmes

Gold is coming back with a vengeance, experiencing a clear recovery and grabbing the attention of market cynics. Analysts from Noruma Securities even upgraded its outlook for gold, expecting bullion to climb over the next three years, according to Barron's.

Nomura analysts attribute their increased gold forecast to real interest rates that "don't seem to be heading anywhere at the moment." In addition, there appears to be "long-term demand support from Asian nominal income growth, an evolving post-QE macroeconomic environment and lower disinvestment potential."

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Shale, the Last Oil and Gas Train / Commodities / Shale Oil and Gas

By: OilPrice_Com

How much faith can we put in our ability to decipher all the numbers out there telling us the US is closing in on its cornering of the global oil market? There's another side to the story of the relentless US shale boom, one that says that some of the numbers are misunderstood, while others are simply preposterous. The truth of the matter is that the industry has to make such a big deal out of shale because it's all that's left. There are some good things happening behind the fairy tale numbers, though--it's just a matter of deciphering them from a sober perspective.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Silver Price Back Below $21 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: P_Radomski_CFA

Briefly: In our opinion short speculative positions (half) in silver and mining stocks are justified from the risk/reward perspective.

We previously emphasized that the situation in Ukraine was the main bullish factor for higher precious metals prices (mainly for the price of gold) and that remains to be the case. However, even though the situation didn't improve, precious metals moved decisively lower on Friday. This does not bode well for the precious metals market, but let's examine the key charts before making the final call (charts courtesy of http://stockcharts.com):

Monday, March 10, 2014

Gold Price Seasonal: When Is the Best Month to Buy? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Jeff_Clark

Many investors, especially those new to precious metals, don't know that gold is seasonal. For a variety of reasons, notably including the wedding season in India, the price of gold fluctuates in fairly consistent ways over the course of the year.

This pattern is borne out by decades of data, and hence has obvious implications for gold investors.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Agri-Commodity Prices New High! / Commodities / Agricultural Commodities

By: Ned_W_Schmidt

The Agri-Food Price Index hit an all time record high for the week ended 7 March. This index of Agri-Food prices is rather comprehensive in that it includes sixteen(16) important Agri-Commodities. That index is plotted in the chart below which covers the past almost two years.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Micro to Macro Charts In Support of Silver Price / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Rambus_Chartology

In this report I want to take a good hard look at silver which has been the laggard in the precious metals complex to see if there is something technically wrong. If you been following the precious metals complex for any length of time you'll know that silver can be contrarian at times. It likes to start out slow and then once gold begins to pickup the pace then silver will play catchup. Once silver gets ready to move it can rally hard and fast catching up to gold and surpassing in on a percentage basis. So far since the December low silver is playing its game of Opossum by looking weak and not confirming the move in gold or the precious metals stocks. I think this is a deceptive look on silver right now. Lets see what the charts are telling us about silver and look for some clues that might help shed some light on what is really taking place right now.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Copper limit Down in Full Crash Mode, Commodities in Peril / Commodities / Copper

By: Anthony_Cherniawski

DBA has just completed a 65.6% retracement of its previous decline. This is a typical bear market rally propelled by shorts having to cover. This is why shorting the market can be a zero sum game, if profits aren’t taken early. On the other hand, this presents another opportunity to short agricultural products. The decline may be breathtaking, as DBA goes into a Primary Cycle decline.

Sunday, March 09, 2014

Gold And Silver Market Activity Will Always Trump News/Events/Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Michael_Noonan

There is something going on in the gold and silver market, and it is difficult to ascertain exactly what it is. Perhaps it can best be described as a change in market behavior that may be defining a potential change in trend. For many, the presumption has been, "Gold and silver are going to go to the moon, for the following reason[s]...." What followed was then a litany of the same facts that have been widely known for well over a year, and the same types of graphs depicting various aspects, [depleted gold stocks, cost of production v current price, etc], very often nicely colored and reproduced, but to no practical effect, at least in terms of the direction of price for gold and silver which continued lower until the end of 2013.

Saturday, March 08, 2014

Gold Stocks Bottom - What 10-Baggers (and 100-Baggers) Look Like / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014

By: Jeff_Clark

Now that it appears clear the bottom is in for gold, it’s time to stop fretting about how low prices will drop and how long the correction will last—and start looking at how high they’ll go and when they’ll get there.

When viewing the gold market from a historical perspective, one thing that’s clear is that the junior mining stocks tend to fluctuate between extreme boom and bust cycles. As a group, they’ll double in price, then crash by 75%... then double or triple or even quadruple again, only to crash 90%. Boom, bust, repeat.

Friday, March 07, 2014

Gold ETF Stocks Inflows Return / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2014

By: Zeal_LLC

Stock-market capital finally started flowing back into the flagship GLD gold ETF for the first time in 14 months in February!  Though this buying was small, this is truly a momentous event.  Extreme gold-ETF outflows were the dominant culprit behind last year’s epic gold selloff.  Without that massive influx of additional supply weighing on the global markets, gold is going to surge on strong physical demand.

The World Gold Council’s latest Gold Demand Trends report published just a couple weeks ago really drives home the importance of gold-ETF selling.  In 2013 they suffered their first net annual outflows ever seen since the first one was launched in 2003.  As today’s secular gold bull is the first time these gold ETFs ever even existed, the gold market has literally never experienced anything like last year.

Friday, March 07, 2014

Gold and Silver and the Paradox of Over-Optimization / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis

Disaster, by over-optimization, is another important way to frame the much-heralded "just in time" inventory practices which are used broadly by industry and grafted to monetary assets like precious metals.

The overgrowth of the financial system and serial bailouts are akin to allowing fuels to build up in the forest, preventing the natural burn off needed to replenish the soil and pave the way for new growth. Superficially, intentions are certainly good. But many suffer despite the well-intended. No one wants to see suffering or be held responsible for it for even a microsecond.

Friday, March 07, 2014

Gold Price Challenges $1350 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014

By: Alasdair_Macleod

From last Friday's close at $1322, gold opened strongly on Monday trading, as high as $1355 before losing two thirds of the rise on Tuesday. On Thursday afternoon (GMT) gold rallied back to challenge the $1350 level. This morning (Friday) it is in the balance as to whether or not gold will need more consolidation before moving on towards $1400, with everyone watching out for US employment numbers.

The change in sentiment over the last eight weeks has encouraged small traders to go long on gold. Normally, market-makers would be able to mark prices down aggressively to shake out these short-term speculators, but it has not recently happened. This suggests that the underlying market is robust.