Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Gold Will Soar Soon; World Now Faces 'Monetary Armageddon' / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: MoneyMetals

Mike Gleason (Money Metals Exchange): It is my privilege now to interview our good friend, Greg Weldon, CEO and President of Weldon Financial. Greg has decades of market research and trading experience specializing in the metals and commodity markets and he even authored a book back in 2006 titled Gold Trading Boot Camp where we accurately predicted the implosion of the U.S. credit market and urged people to buy gold when it was only $550 an ounce. He's made some fantastic calls over the last few years here on our podcast and it's great to have him back with us.

We did speak to you back at the end of February before all this madness started. At the time, COVID-19 had begun seriously impacting economic activity in global markets, maybe not so much in the U.S. Now, just two months later, more than 30 million people have filed for unemployment, GDP was deeply negative in the first quarter and figures to be even worse here in Q2. But the equity markets are acting as if the worst is behind us. We got a major correction followed by an almost relentless rally. Our take is that equity markets are completely disconnected from reality. They are hitched, instead, to the Fed's magic money machine. What is your take on how stock markets are behaving here, Greg?

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Is Crude Oil On the Way Up Now? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Nadia_Simmons

Crude oil soared higher yesterday and also in today’s pre-market trading, which shows you why it was a good idea to remain cautious yesterday, even despite crude oil’s breakdown below the rising support line.

Monday, May 18, 2020

Gold Mining Stocks Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Zeal_LLC

The major gold miners’ stocks have rallied dramatically out of mid-March’s stock-panic lows, soaring to new bull-market highs.  Their just-reported Q1’20 operational and financial results reveal whether today’s higher gold-stock prices are fundamentally justified.  They also illuminate whether this gold-stock upleg is likely to continue powering higher, despite the catastrophic economic damage from governments’ lockdowns.

With officials around the world waging a scorched-earth war against this COVID-19 pandemic, the gold miners’ latest quarterly results are more important than ever.  While this earnings season covered Q1’20, most gold companies didn’t release their quarterly reports until the last couple weeks.  In them they had to disclose the ongoing impact of governments’ COVID-19 lockdowns current to those quarterlies’ release dates.

US securities regulations require American companies to report quarterly results by 40 calendar days after quarter-ends, a deadline that just passed this week.  In Canada where the majority of the world’s gold stocks trade, that deadline is looser at 45 days.  Unfortunately this year Canadian companies were granted the ability to extend their reporting by an additional 45 days to help cope with COVID-19’s impacts.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Powell Sends a Message With Love for Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

Powell gave a much-awaited speech yesterday, in which he sent one bearish and two bullish messages for gold. What exactly did he say and what does it mean for the yellow metal?

Powell Sends One Bearish and Two Bullish Messages for Gold
Jerome Powell gave a speech yesterday at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The Fed Chair acknowledged the unprecedented depth of the coronavirus crisis, and its disastrous impact for the US labor market, something we also noted many times:

Friday, May 15, 2020

Will Stocks Lead the Way Lower for Gold Miners? / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2020

By: P_Radomski_CFA

The precious metals market did almost nothing yesterday, and consequently we have relatively little to comment on today. There are two subtly bearish signs that we would like to feature, nonetheless.

The first subtly bearish sign is the change in the way the USD Index “topped” this month. In early April, and then in late April, the USDX reversed close to the 101 level and then moved lower in a decisive way, until declining below 99. This time has already proved to be different.

Friday, May 15, 2020

Gold and Silver: As We Go from Deflation to Hyperinflation / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2020

By: The_Gold_Report

Technical expert Clive Maund explains why he believes gold and silver are powering up for a stratospheric advance.

The deflation and depression is right here, right now, and if you don't believe that, try asking some of the 30 million people who just lost their jobs in the U.S., or those who (used to) work in the catering and tourism industries.

The Federal Reserve is reacting to this situation by working to create hyperinflation, because it finds it preferable to a deflationary implosion. There are two reasons for this. One is that it enables the Fed to continue to fulfill its time-honored role, which is to transfer wealth from the rest of society to the 1%, and the other is it defers complete systemic collapse for a little longer.

The Fed has created a staggering amount of new money since this crisis started a few months ago to feed the debt monster. Its balance sheet has gone exponential and is expanding vertically, guaranteeing hyperinflation, which will begin the moment the velocity of money starts to pick up. Currently there is no velocity of money because the economy is dead, but if you print enough money to throw at it, as in countless trillions, you can get things moving again.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Silver's Massive Undervaluation Relative to Gold Makes It Irresistible / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: The_Gold_Report

Technical analyst Clive Maund explains why he's bullish on silver. The way you see silver now depends on whether you see a glass that is half empty or half full. If you are a pessimist by nature you will be grumbling about its underperformance relative to gold up to this point, but if you are an optimist, as we certainly are with regards to silver, you will see it as maintaining the opportunity to pick it up cheap before it really takes off higher in a big way, which as we will now proceed to see is a fast growing probability.

We have been wary of silver and silver investments in the recent past with good reason, because if another deflationary downwave hit, silver was in position to get really beaten back down into the dust, as we can see on its latest 6-month chart below. After being smashed in March when the stock market tanked, it staged a recovery, but started looking decidedly timorous as it approached a zone of heavy resistance in April and its unfavorably aligned moving averages. It was set up to take another severe beating in the event of the stock market tipping into another downwave, especially as it has been forced gradually lower by its falling 50-day moving average over the past several weeks.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

Will Job Market from Hell Support Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

April job report shows a terrible US labor market. Coronavirus destroyed 20.5 million jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to almost 15 percent. How far does the number reflect reality – and what does it actually mean for the gold market?

Apocalypse in the US Labor Market
14.7 percent. Remember this value well, as it will go down in history. This is the official US unemployment rate for April calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate soared from 3.5 percent in February and 4.4 percent in March. As the chart below shows, the spike is really historic, as such high level has not been seen in modern history.

Thursday, May 14, 2020

The US Dollar or Silver: Place Your Bet / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Hubert_Moolman

Over the last 50 years there have virtually been no significant Silver rallies during a period when the US Dollar index has been rising.

If you are betting on a massive Silver rally while US dollar strength continues, then you have a very low probability of success. Similarly, if you bet on a massive Silver rally while the US dollar continues a long decline, then you have a great chance of success.

So, for the Silver investor, what the US Dollar index might do over the coming years, is a very important question to answer. No surprise here, since the US dollar has been 100% debased (of Silver).

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Gold Investors Shouldn’t Be Losing Focus / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: P_Radomski_CFA

The recent volatility in most markets was really extreme, which means that it was easy to lose focus on the things that matter the most in case of the gold market. It was relatively easy to keep one’s focus as far as the fundamental outlook for gold is concerned – it’s quite obvious that the economies around the world are in deep trouble and that the various QEs and money-printing mechanisms are likely to be inflationary, which together is likely to result in stagflation – which gold loves.

On the other hand, it was easy to lose focus with regard to one of gold’s key short- and medium-term drivers – the USD Index. If the USD Index soars, then gold is likely to plunge in the short run, regardless of how favorable other fundamentals are.

Consequently, in today’s free article, we’ll discuss the situation in the USD Index, with emphasis on two key similarities.

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Gold in the year of the Coronavirus Pandemic / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Michael_J_Kosares

What it cannot do is cure the virus.  What it could do, however, according to a good many analysts, is act as an effective hedge against its economic consequences. Since the beginning of the year through April, the metal was up 11.73% during probably the worst period in economic history since the 1930s Great Depression. Below we chronicle what top experts have to say about gold in the year of the pandemic – its portfolio role, its qualities as a disaster hedge, and its price potential.

Monday, May 11, 2020

Hi Ho Silver : Away! / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Rambus_Chartology

Tonight I would like to focus in on silver which remains one of the best bargains in the PM complex right now. When I first became acquainted with the PM complex back in early 2002 I learned quickly that just because gold may have had a good rally sometimes the PM stocks move very little which was confusing to me as I thought they should move in tandem. Then there were other times when the PM stocks would rally and gold didn’t move that much. It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time, but markets can be fickle like that.

Another thing I noticed back then was that silver was very weak and wouldn’t respond at all if the PM stock and gold were in rally mode. That has stuck with me all these years. Currently with the PM complex bottoming on March 23 we are seeing a similar scenario playing out where gold and the PM stocks are having a decent rally but silver is still lagging very badly. The thing about silver is that once it’s ready to move the rallies and declines for that matter, can be breathtaking. When the PM complex ended their bull market in 2011 silver was the first one to complete its bull market in April of 2011 while gold and the PM stock indexes didn’t complete their bull market until September a full 5 months later.

Monday, May 11, 2020

The Big Move In Silver May Be Right Now / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Chris_Vermeulen

For many years now, metals traders and enthusiasts have been patiently waiting for the move in Silver that we feel its eventually going to happen. 

There is almost a ritual process in the metals market that takes place when a crisis happens.  We’ve written about this in a past article and we’ve highlighted how we believe Silver is one of the absolute best opportunities if/once it breaks out.  It goes something like this…

A.  Silver is often an overlooked “little cousin” to other precious metals like Gold and Platinum.  Many traders would rather trade/acquire Gold vs. Silver.

B.  When a crisis begins to happen, both Gold and Silver tend to collapse an initially as the shock to the markets translates into sales of precious metals to improve cash/margin requirements.

C.  As the crisis continues to unfold, Gold will typically begin a sustained upside price move over many months where Silver may move very little to the upside.  This creates a massive peak in the Gold to Silver ratio.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Forecasting Crude Oil: This Method Has Been the Undefeated Champion Since 1998 / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: EWI

In case you just landed on Earth via Martian spaceship, 2020 has seen the biggest crash in oil prices ever.

This chart captures crude's three-month, 80%-plus nosedive to 3-decade lows. (Price data as of May 1, 2020 and does not reflect the unprecedented April 20 plunge into negative territory at -$40.32. Yes, minus $40.32).

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Coronapocalypse and Gold - How High Is Too High for the Yellow Metal? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

$2,000, $5,000 or even the Jim Rickard’s $50,000 as the next target for gold. How realistic are these figures – could we see the yellow metal at $5,000 or even higher amid the coronavirus crisis? We invite you thus to read our today’s article and find out how high gold prices can go in this downturn.

The first quarter of 2020 was clearly positive for the gold market, as the chart below shows. The yellow metal gained 6.2 percent from December 30, 2019 to March 31, 2020, moving from $1,515 to $1,609. In April, the bullion went up even further to $1,693, increasing gains to 11.7 percent in 2020 (as of April 17).

Sunday, May 10, 2020

The Illusion of Owning Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Nick_Barisheff

Gold-backed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and similar products account for a significant part of the gold market, with institutional and individual investors using them to implement many of their investment strategies without considering the true risk associated with many aspects of holding non-tangible assets. Gold ETFs are units representing physical gold in paper or dematerialized form, which is very different from owning physical gold. According to the World Gold Council, global gold-backed ETFs added 298 tonnes, or US$23 billion, across all regions in the first quarter of 2020[1]. Total ETF holdings amounted to 3,296 tonnes, representing US$179 billion. The largest ETF is SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) with 1,048 tonnes.

Many investors and financial advisors may be surprised to learn that owning shares in a gold ETF is not the same as owning physical gold. As one of the largest ETFs, GLD states in its prospectus: “…designed to track the price of gold.” Is it wise to choose convenience over holding physical gold?

Since their introduction in 2003, gold-backed ETFs have transformed the gold investment market into an illusion, diverting attention from ownership of physical gold. This is like a magician that has you focused on a distraction while they perform a trick.

Saturday, May 09, 2020

Silver Offers A Great Opportunity / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Hubert_Moolman

The stock market has had a great run during the last decade. It has made some people a good stack of money.

However, the March crash has many wondering what it will do next. Will it continue to crash, or will it continue the bull market?

Is it really worth spending time and effort contemplating its next move? I think not.

The market is currently presenting a great opportunity to lock in those stock market profits, and then even growing it much more.

Saturday, May 09, 2020

Will Gold Decline As Economies Gradually Reopen? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: Arkadiusz_Sieron

Half the US States and countries like Italy and Germany are gradually easing lockdowns. Taking measured steps, the moves are broadly cheered. Rightfully so? And what does the reopening mean for the gold market?

Epidemics: Bad, Good, and Ugly

By May 6, 2020, more than total 3.6 million of confirmed cases have been reported in the world and more than 250,000 have already died from the COVID-19. In the United States, about 1.2 million of cases have been identified so far, and more than 71,000 people have died. This is bad news.

Friday, May 08, 2020

Junior Gold Miners Ready To Run / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2020

By: Chris_Vermeulen

Both Gold and Silver Futures have been struggling to rally above recent high levels since the start of the global stock market collapse related to the COVID-19 virus event.  Yet, the Junior Gold Miners appear to be telling us the Precious Metals market is boiling hot.

Gold, the bell-weather safe-haven asset, initially collapsed when the US stock market started the massive selloff in late February 2020, then recovered to higher price levels near $1785 recently.  Since reaching these levels, Gold has stalled into a sideways price flag near major resistance.

Silver, on the other hand, is trading near $15.60 and has yet to really recover to anywhere near the levels it had achieved in early January 2020 (near $18.60).

Friday, May 08, 2020

A New Day Has Dawned for Gold and Silver / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2020

By: MoneyMetals

Most resource sector writers (including me) have for a long time been "wrong" about gold and silver.

When they ran from $250 and $5 an ounce, respectively, to $1,920 and $49 in 2011, those who listened, acted, and sold a bit did quite well. We argued the "longer time bullish case" as these metals dropped into their final cyclical bear market graves in late 2015.

But that was then… and this is now.

What we DID get right was that when the Big Turn finally came, it would change directions so swiftly and violently that anyone waiting for "the bottom" would miss it, as rising premiums more than offset declining prices.