Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Saturday, April 13, 2019
MMT is a spectacularly Dem idea / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Economists are good for one thing, and that is creating theories. The trouble is, those theories are often wrong. This is why economics is often called “the dismal science”. Such is the case with the latest economic soup-de-jour, Modern Monetary Theory, or MMT for short.
In this article we take a deep dive into MMT: What is it? Who’s behind it or against it, whether it could work, and what it would mean for gold.
What is MMT?
Modern Monetary Theory is a new way of approaching the US federal budget that is both unconventional and absurd. It posits that rather than obsessing about how large the debt has grown (over $2 trillion) and the ongoing annual deficits that fuel debt, we should focus on spending, specifically, how the government can target certain spending programs that will cause minimal inflation. Fiscal policy on steroids is, according to its proponents, to be the new engine of US growth and prosperity.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
The 'Silver Lines' of Opportunity / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
How to turn a simple chart into a near-term road map
On February 20, Variety Magazine's "Film News Roundup" announced a new thriller coming to theaters near you: "The Silver Bear."
Funny enough, that same day, another kind of thriller was playing out in the theater of finance; its name, the Silver Bull!
The chart below captures the action: Since the start of 2019, silver prices had been on a tear, soaring to $14, $14.50, $15, $15.50 and then $16 per ounce in late February in a white-hot winning streak that has outperformed even gold.
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Saturday, April 13, 2019
Gold Stocks Bull Market Breakout Potential / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
Gold has faded from interest in the past couple months, overshadowed by the monster stock-market rally. But gold has been consolidating high, quietly basing before its next challenge to major $1350 bull-market resistance. A decisive breakout above will really catch investors’ attention, greatly improving sentiment and driving major capital inflows. With gold-futures speculators not very long yet, plenty of buying power exists.
Last August gold was pummeled to a 19.3-month low near $1174 by extreme all-time-record short selling in gold futures. The speculators trading these derivatives command a wildly-disproportional influence on short-term gold price action, especially when investors aren’t buying. Gold-futures trading bullies gold’s price around considerably to majorly, which can really distort psychology surrounding the gold market.
The main reason is the incredible leverage inherent in gold futures. This week the maintenance margin required to trade a single 100-troy-ounce gold-futures contract is just $3400. That’s the minimum cash traders have to keep in their accounts. Yet at the recent $1300 gold price, each contract controls gold worth $130,000. So gold-futures speculators are legally allowed to run extreme leverage up to 38.2x!
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Friday, April 12, 2019
Natural Gas Continues To Offer Opportunities for Longs / Commodities / Natural Gas
Historically, April has been a pretty consistent upside opportunity in Natural Gas for over 20 years. Over the past 24+ years, the upside opportunity in Natural Gas has been accurate over 68% of the time with the average upside potential ranging from $0.60 to $0.85. With Natural Gas sitting down near recent lows and seeing as though we are still fairly early in the month of April, our researchers believe the opportunity still exists for some quick profits in UNG with an upside move from below $23.95 to a target level of $26 to $28 (roughly +9 to +18%).
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
Gold and Silver Still on the Road to a Low Risk Setup / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
From a post on gold and silver on Tuesday…
Very simply, if it’s an H&S it’s a minor one with a target to the SMA 200 or short-term lateral support. Gold has curled back up to test the underside of its SMA 50. A takeout of 1310 and then the March high could put yeller back in business. Otherwise, don’t personalize it. A test of the SMA 200 would be normal.
The H&S was not my thing. I tend not to get overly excited about short-term patterns and surely do not announce them far and wide to stir people up. It was a product of the gold community, some members of which have been flipping in head spinning fashion between bullish and bearish views. I note it again because I don’t want that stink on me. The upside and downside parameters above were my stuff.
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
The Gold Market Right After Super Wednesday / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Super Wednesday is behind us! The masters of monetary policy have revealed their cards. The Fed released the fresh minutes, the ECB held its monetary policy meeting, while the Brexit was postponed again. How will all these play out in the gold market?
Minutes Show Patience among the FOMC Members
The minutes from the pivotal FOMC meeting show that the Fed saw the first-quarter economic slowdown as transitory and that the real GDP growth would bounce back solidly in the second quarter. Although the yield curve inverted for a while, the central bankers noted that the unusually low level of term premiums in longer-term interest rates has made the yield curve a less reliable economic indicator.
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
Sprout-less Gold now Tier 1 Capital / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Gold is often criticized by Wall Street as being kind of a useless investment.
Institutional investors tend to prefer investments that are thought to contain the potential for growth, growth = sprouts. An investment has to produce a growing revenue stream - if it doesn’t grow it doesn’t compound. Gold is rejected as an investment because it doesn’t produce sprouts, meaning the steady income and systematic growth so sought after by institutional investors just isn’t there.
But gold performs two jobs that fiat currencies, or any other financial innovation, cannot do; gold acts as a safe haven in times of turmoil. Indeed, gold’s status as store of value, as money, the only currency available when yours is worthless, has come into play with respect to the drama that has been unfolding in Venezuela over the last couple of years. Hyperinflation and shortages of basic foods and medicine have led to a political crisis.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
This Leading Indicator Looks Bullish for Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
There are more than a handful of things I can cite as leading indicators for the Gold price.
Ratios such as Gold against the stock market and Gold against foreign currencies are generally good leading indicators. The gold stocks and Silver can function as leading indicators at times.
Yhe yield curve and bonds can also be leading indicators.
But there is one thing I’ve never mentioned, nor written about. It makes sense in the current context though. That’s Platinum.
Platinum has a brief but clear history as a leading indicator for Gold.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Smart Money Is Piling Into Oil / Commodities / Crude Oil
Oil prices jumped to five-month highs this week, pushed higher by a bullish cocktail of supply outages, geopolitical unrest and a sputtering shale sector.
The most recent factor is the sudden eruption of the long simmering feud in Libya between rival factions. The attack on Tripoli by the Libyan National Army (LNA), a militia led by Khalifa Haftar, led to a spike in oil prices on Monday as the market priced in the possibility of supply outages.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
In The Event Of A Fiat Currency Collapse Would Gold Rocket? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
One of the reasons given for allocating a portion of one’s investment assets to the precious metals sector such as physical gold is that gold can be considered as an insurance policy against the devaluation of paper money. On my office wall I have framed various bank notes from an 'inflationary' period of time which include the following:
2,000,000 marks, Germany 1923
100,000,000 Pengos, Hungry 1946
5,000,000 Kwanza, Angola 1995
Wednesday, April 10, 2019
The Inverted Yield Curve as a Harbinger of Higher Gold Prices / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
During the course of the past few weeks, we have heard much about the inverted yield curve in three-month and ten-year Treasuries as a harbinger of recessions. Missed in the press reports is the fact that it has also been a harbinger of higher gold prices. In the chart above, please note the upward surges in the price of gold in the five-year periods following the two most recent yield inversions in 2000 and 2006. The first occurred with gold trading in the $300 range. It subsequently rose to the $600-650 level in 2006. The second occurred with gold priced in the $600-650 range. It subsequently rose to over $1900 per ounce in 2011 – its all-time high.
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Wednesday, April 10, 2019
Will Recovery in Payrolls and Yield Curve Sink Gold? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
US labor market strengthened again and the yield curve inversion looks to be over. Has the sky cleared? Hold on, Brexit is just around the corner. Given the circumstances, are gold prices more likely to rise or fall?
America Creates almost 200,000 new jobs in March
US economy added 196,000 jobs last month, following a disappointing rise of 33,000 in February (after an upward revision). The number surprised on a positive side, as the economists forecasted 177,000 created jobs.
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Monday, April 08, 2019
The Biggest Gold Story Of 2019 / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
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Sunday, April 07, 2019
Goldcorp: 'Anything but my Payment' / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
Money manager Adrian Day looks at recent results from several royalty companies in his portfolio, as well as recent developments in the ongoing Goldcorp saga, and provides updates on a couple of favorite exploration companies.Goldcorp Inc. (G:TSX; GG:NYSE, US$11.52) looks set to be acquired by Newmont, but not without continuing controversy, particularly over chairman Ian Telfer's egregious "retirement allowance" payment, almost tripled after the acquisition announcement. After my comments last bulletin, I was invited onto BNN/Bloomberg to discuss the merger. See TV interview here. The response was overwhelming, and positive.
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Saturday, April 06, 2019
Gold Stocks Still Marching / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2019
The gold miners’ stocks are still marching, grinding higher on balance in a solid upleg. While interest in this sector has faded since late February, it is nicely set up for a strong rally. After consolidating high and establishing a sturdy base, the gold miners are likely to soon report greatly-improved first-quarter results. Couple that with gold itself powering higher, and the slumbering gold stocks should surge substantially.
The gold stocks are mired in something of a psychological limbo these days. They aren’t exactly out of favor, but there’s little enthusiasm for this sector. Investors and speculators have largely lost interest for technical, sentimental, and fundamental reasons. It’s been 6 weeks since this gold-stock upleg surged to material new highs. The major gold miners have been mostly grinding sideways since, consolidating and basing.
Contributing heavily to traders’ apathy is gold’s own price action in that recent span. Gold overwhelmingly drives gold-mining profits, making these stocks leveraged plays on gold. Gold’s own latest upleg high of $1341 came back in mid-February right before gold stocks topped. Over the next 12 trading days gold fell 4.1% to $1285 during its usual pre-spring-rally-pullback period. Slumps invariably sap traders’ enthusiasm.
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Friday, April 05, 2019
Will Global Slowdown Support Gold, or Is It Just Temporary? / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Mayday, mayday, we are sinking! The global economy is slowing down. How serious is the current slump? We invite you to read our today’s article about the true condition of the world’s economy and find out what are its likely implications for the precious metals market.
Economists and market analysts often make volte-face. We remember that in 2018 the pundits were heralding the synchronized global growth. One year later all the talking heads prophesy the synchronized global slowdown. What is happening? How serious is the current slump? And what are the implication for the precious metals market?
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Thursday, April 04, 2019
The Impact of Monetary Policy on Gold / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
In March, the World Gold Council released the newest edition of its Investment Update. What can we learn from the publication? Let’s examine the most recent history of Fed tightening and loosening with respect to its effect on gold prices.
Is Fed’s Dovish Turn Positive for Gold?
The WGC has recently published the new Investment Update about the effects of monetary policy on gold. The main finding is that, historically speaking, when the US monetary policy turns from being tight into a neutral stance, the price of the yellow metal increases, although this effect is not always immediate. Indeed, the gold’s reaction to the March Fed’s U-turn was initially rather muted, as the chart below shows.
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Thursday, April 04, 2019
Gold and Silver Are Presenting A Buying Opportunity / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
While so many were getting so bullish of the metals market over the last few months, my work was telling me that we were not likely going to be seeing a major break out just yet. So, I have been waiting patiently for a good set up for another long trade.
But, during my wait, I have seen extremes in sentiment again. At the highs, the extremes were quite bullish. And, now, the fear is starting to creep back into the market.
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Thursday, April 04, 2019
Gold Market Confusion Reigns (Or What to Do When Nothing Makes Sense) / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
Sector expert Michael Ballanger discusses the pitfalls of market reversals and forecasting. As I reach end-of-week, end-of-month book-squaring, where all of my urgent e-mails and all of my myopic missives and all of my topical tweets are summarized in once terse and quite concise "Monthly P&L," I am astounded at the most recent example of how masterfully the Gold Cartel works in suckering investors into a false sense of comfort and misplaced complacency.
On March 25, just before noon, I sent out the chart of Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX:TSX; GOLD:NYSE) under the title of "New Idea," with the base case being a technical setup at the $14.00-14.10 level that was shaping up to be a pure, textbook break-out from three prior tops in this range dating back to October. I was buying the May $12 calls for $2.15 (50% position) on the assumption that, despite the "less-than-ideal"buy signal I got on March 6, there was a decent trade in this single stock idea, and a pretty easy shot to the $17-18 area.
I was so excited that I rang up my friend and superb technical analyst David Chapman, and asked, "Chappie, pull up Barrick and tell me if I am crazy. "To which he immediately said, "You are—I hate that stock!" However, after looking at the chart, he agreed that GOLD had indeed "broken out," and that it would surely imply a pop to the "$16, 17, 18"range without too much trouble. (He also said he wouldn't buy it "out of principle," making him both honorable and smart.)
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Wednesday, April 03, 2019
Gold, Silver, Palladium, Platinum Relative Strength Ratios Hit Rare Extremes / Commodities / Gold & Silver 2019
It’s possible last week’s cascading selling rout in palladium ended its multi-year bull market. The formerly white-hot metal lost more than $200/oz (but is beginning to rebound).
For now, however, palladium prices remain in a long-term uptrend above the bullishly aligned 20-week and 50-week moving averages – and physical supply remains tight.
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