Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The Real Reason Behind Record High Oil Prices- Part 2 / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: F_William_Engdahl
As detailed in an earlier article, a conservative calculation is that at least 60% of today's $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government's Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today's price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population. Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Agricultural Commodities ETF Sprouts New Upleg / Commodities / Agricultural Commodities
By: Mike_Paulenoff
The DBA (Deutsche Bank Powershares Agricultural Commodity Fund, ETF) is showing some pop today finally, no doubt in reaction to the sharp upmoves in Soybeans and Corn (wheat continues to lag), which indicate the start of new post-correction, recovery uplegs.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Gold Firm on Inflation Investment Hedge / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
GOLD BULLION for physical delivery rose to a fresh one-month high early in London on Wednesday, breaking above $927 per ounce as crude oil topped $130 per barrel and the US Dollar fell yet again on the currency markets.Read full article... Read full article...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Silver Presents Huge Opportunities for Investors / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mark_OByrne
Gold and silver continued to surge yesterday with gold up 1.6% and silver up over 4%. They have continued to rally in Asia and early trade in Europe. Gold has risen on the continuing oil surge with oil reaching new record highs (above $130) again this morning. There are fears of shortages and possible rationing in the next few years as the markets gradually and belatedly realize the reality that is peak oil. The FT reports that the fear of a global oil shortage within five years propelled oil futures prices to well above $130 a barrel, further stoking inflationary pressures in the global economy.
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Uranium Stocks- The Alternative Energy Bargain / Commodities / Uranium
By: Money_and_Markets
Sean Brodrick writes: All eyes are on oil as the price of crude trends higher and higher. But one of the rules of smart investing is to look at things others have ignored or written off, because you might find real bargains there.
And this may be a good time to look at a sector we haven't looked at in a long time: uranium and nuclear power. Why? Because as oil prices dominate the headlines, the smart money is looking at uranium. As a result ...
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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Uranium Stocks Upside Breakout / Commodities / Uranium
By: Merv_Burak
AND AWAY WE GO. The box that has been such a confining feature of the Index action for so many weeks has been decisively broken, on the up side. The Index made a sharp upside move, and with significant volume action. All looks gung-ho for a good rally, maybe even a reversal of long term trend although that will still require much more work. However, let's calm down for a few minutes and see exactly what the charts and indicators are really telling us.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Crude Oil Spikes to New High on Emerging Markets Demand- Part 1 of 2 / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Julian_DW_Phillips
The oil price has in the past few years been a major influence on the gold price and quite rightly too. Both represent an unalterable definer of power and value. But of late the gold price has lagged the oil price in its relationship with oil. We see this as a temporary situation, which will persist until the ‘big' global picture forces itself onto the realities of our daily life in our local communities.
Once this happens we believe that the gold and silver price will catch up and reassert itself, not as a ‘gold standard' [after all governments will manage such a system as it currently does paper currencies] but as a measure of value and power in the monetary system [more on that in future articles]. So in this piece we look at the oil crisis, which is not fully appreciated by its audience, staring us in the face.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Gold's Corrective Rally Continues / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mike_Paulenoff
The rally off of the May 2 low at 83.06 in the streetTRACKS Gold Shares (NYSE: GLD) has recovered to 90.78 so far, and appears to have more in it that should propel prices towards 92.00/60 prior to completion. If that proves to be the case, then my work will argue that an "intervening" recovery rally ended, which separates two larger downlegs within an intermediate-term corrective process…which will point to another decline in the GLD that retests the May low at 83.06.Read full article... Read full article...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Crude Oil Prices Set to Double and Double Again! / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: John_Mauldin
Goldman Sachs recently forecasted that oil would be at $141 a barrel by the end of the year, and rising to $200 a barrel in the not too distant future. I have seen other forecasts calling for oil to slip significantly under $100 a barrel before starting yet another bull market.
I have written for years that we are not going to run out of oil or energy, just cheap oil. I was just in South Africa, where much of their gas and diesel comes from coal gasification. At one time this was an expensive way to make gas, and South Africans had to pay more for their gas than the rest of the world. Now, it is getting close to "par" to the cost of gas in the US, and is cheaper than gas in Europe.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Gold Steadies Above $900 as Bond Market Igores Rising Inflation Fears / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
THE SPOT PRICE of physical Gold bullion moved sideways around $907 per ounce in London on Tuesday after what Mitsui Bussan in Hong Kong called "a sluggish morning session with early selling."The AM Fix in London rose 50¢ from Monday's afternoon price to $907 per ounce.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Gold Firms on UN Warning of Global Stagflation / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mark_OByrne
Gold and silver continued their recent move up yesterday prior to a slight sell off. They have traded sideways to slightly up in Asia and early trade in Europe. Since last Thursday gold had soared by more than 5% and thus profit taking was to be expected. Similarly year to date gold is up nearly 9% (unlike most equity markets) and in the last 12 months gold is up 37% and thus corrections are healthy and to be expected.Gold may need to consolidate between $885 and $915 before the next leg up in the bull market.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Another Shaft in the Mining Business / Commodities / Metals & Mining
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
Expect the unexpected and you'll end up in therapy, on drugs or enlightened.
For those aware of the impending collapse of debt-based paper money assets, the fact that the majority still have no idea about the magnitude of the approaching danger is unbelievable. What is also unbelievable are the positions some of those people hold.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Oil Crisis Stagflation Spiral Special / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Crude oil continued to hit its new all time high of $128 today by closing above $127 for the first time, up 96% in 12 months and 165% in 3 years. The impact of the price hike is both inflationary and deflationary at the same time. Inflationary as oil is the life blood of the functioning of global economies and thus resulting in across the board price hikes. Deflationary impacts as the price hike acts as a tax on the consumer from fuel pumps to food stores thus leaving less money in the hands of the consumer to pay for the necessities let alone for luxuries.
This is creating a spiraling stagflationary environment, as on its own the western economies could have coped with the oil crisis, but having been hit with the triple whammy of deflating housing markets that itself triggered the bursting of the credit bubble that continues to deepen as banks fail to report the true extent of the crisis on the interbank LIBOR market.
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Gold Seasonal Trend Analysis Points to Bargain Hunting Prices Ahead / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Michael_J_Kosares
One of the most intriguing patterns in the current bull market in gold has to do with the annual buying opportunity which crops up in the depths of the summer doldrums. As depicted in the graph below, the end of a 20-yr bear market in gold was marked in 1999, and this new bull market was birthed in 2001.
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Natural Gas Failing to Bounce off Support Suggests Trend Reversal / Commodities / Natural Gas
By: Mike_Paulenoff
Interesting situation is developing in the UNG because the price structure pressed from last week's failed highs in and around 56.30 right to a test of the March- May support line at 53.00, which thus far has contained any further weakness. HOWEVER, let's notice that each time prices neared the channel support line, they reversed to the upside SHARPLY- to start a new upleg. So far, THIS TOUCH OF THE SUPPORT LINE HAS ELICITED A VERY MODERATE UPSIDE RESPONSE SO FAR, which could be indicative of an exhausted market, or a just a delayed response.Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 19, 2008
Central Bankers Art of Misdirection / Commodities / Market Manipulation
By: Captain_Hook
Central planers and Wall Street prestidigitators are getting better at having people concentrate on the wrong things at the wrong times in my opinion. In terms of present circumstances are concerned, we are referring to their ability to have the street focused on a manufactured rally in the dollar ($), while the effects of their previous inflation efforts run rampant throughout commodity markets, all the while having no material impact on improving the credit crisis, which is of course justification for printing the copious amounts of fiat currency they enjoy so much. What's worse, this latest round of misdirection, a technique used by magicians in case you are unaware, will likely only make the effects of rapid monetary inflation worse over time as more will be needed, despite present claims that the worst of the crisis is over , and that it's onward and upwards from here. Read full article... Read full article...
Monday, May 19, 2008
Gold Prices Jump on Weakening US Dollar / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Adrian_Ash
PHYSICAL GOLD BULLION prices rose 1.2% in Asian and early London trade on Monday, reaching a four-week high on what analysts could only call "investment fund buying" in the absence of specific news or financial events.Nearing the US open above $912 per ounce, Gold rose as Far Eastern equity markets ended the day 0.5% higher on average.
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Gold Surges on Inflation Hedge and Safe haven Buying / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Mark_OByrne
Gold was up $20 to $898.40 on Friday and silver was up 28 cents to $16.90. Gold started the week with the rally continuing in Asia and has risen in early trading in Europe to over $910 per ounce.Oil has weakened slightly but the dollar has also weakened slightly and this likely contributed to gold's rally this morning.
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Monday, May 19, 2008
Energy Sector: Crude Oil Demand from China , India , Rockets Upward / Commodities / Energy Resources
By: Joseph_Dancy
Long term supply and demand trends continue to keep energy prices elevated. The easiest to locate and cheapest oil to produce on the global scale has been for the most part found. Many of the major older fields are in decline. New production tends to be more expensive to develop, and access to potential fields is increasingly restricted by nationalistic concerns as governments try to control resources to benefit their own citizens. In many areas a shortfall of drilling and production equipment exists. Read full article... Read full article...
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Gold Suckers Rally? / Commodities / Gold & Silver
By: Joe_Nicholson
“B waves can extend considerably and even appear impulsive, and … short term traders may very well try to continue their luck on the long side this week. We seem to have completed the minimum requirements for a 3-wave correction, but as shown in the chart, may need to see the wave subdivide further as drama in the currency and credit markets plays out. ~ Precious Points: Fool's Gold, May 10, 2008Read full article... Read full article...