Best of the Week

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Gold Market Bull or Bear? / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: David_Vaughn

A Carnegie Mellon Professor gave what turned out to be his last lecture this past year. Professor Randy Pausch died just this last summer of cancer. His last lecture achieved remarkable attention. More than he ever expected. His principle theme in the lecture was advice to college students about how to pursue their career and attain their personal goals. The lecture was one of the most powerful given concerning offering hope and optimism. The message seemed to ignite over the Internet ultimately being heard by millions. Professor Pausch said that the lecture was primarily a message to his children to give them their fathers' testimonial before dying of cancer that he had been fighting for two years. 

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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Gold Rises as Stock Markets Tumble / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Adrian_Ash

SPOT GOLD PRICES recovered an early 2.1% tumble on Tuesday, rising above $780 an ounce as Japan's Nikkei stock index closed almost 5% lower after Tokyo traders got back to work following a public holiday on Monday.

The Japanese Yen shot 3% higher on the forex market as "carry trade" debts – used to fund better-paying trades outside zero-interest-rate Japan – were pulled home in response to the weekend's demise of Lehman Bros. and Merrill Lynch, plus the ongoing threat of collapse at Washington Mutual and AIG.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Gold and Silver Safe-havens in Face of Global Financial Meltdown / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Mark_OByrne

Gold and silver rallied Monday as the crisis on Wall Street worsened with gold up $21.70 to $782 and silver up 28 cents to $11.02. Gold fell slightly in Asian trading but has risen in early European trading to $780/oz.

Gold's resilience is impressive considering the bloodbath seen in the oil pits where oil has fallen another 4% to below $92 per barrel (Light Sweet Crude Oil Future - Combined - OCT08). Other non currency commodities have also fallen sharply.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Deleveraging Not Deflation Resulting In Commodities Temporary Violent Correction / Commodities / Credit Crisis 2008

By: Michael_Swanson

I went out of town last week to the Resource Investment Conference in Las Vegas. I'll get to that in a second, but so much is happening that this is going to be a longer message than usual. This weekend we are seeing Lehman go broke, Merrill Lynch in a desperate buyout, AIG try to fend of bankruptcy, and a frightening gap down in the market this morning. And of course last weekend we saw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get taken over by the government last Monday. That spurred a beefy gap up that immediately got sold - and that selling pressure sparked a cascade of selling, which in turned caused only what I can describe as a crash in gold stocks.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Gold Spikes as Central Banks Unleash Emergency Funding / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Adrian_Ash

SPOT GOLD PRICES jumped 2.6% at the Asian opening on Monday but drifted back to $770 an ounce as world stock markets sank and money fled into government bonds following the overnight demise of two Wall Street giants.

Lehman Brothers – a major player in the commodity futures market – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy just as the London Stock Exchange opened for business today, driving the FTSE100 share index more than 3.4% below Friday's close.

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Gold and Silver Rally As Financial Crisis Deepens / Commodities / Credit Crisis 2008

By: Mark_OByrne

Gold and silver rallied Friday as the crisis on Wall Street deepened with gold up $17.80 to $759.80 and silver up 21 cents to $10.74. The rally continued in Asia overnight when gold surged more than $20 to over $785 before gradually giving up those gains in early trading in London. Gold's gains in Asia have been eroded as oil prices have fallen sharply (some 4%) and in extremely volatile trading the dollar has recovered sharply from steep overnight lows ( dollar has rallied 1.6% from 1.4478 to the euro to trade back up to 1.4250).

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Has SIlver 50% Price Crash Hit Bottom? / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Clive_Maund

It is not for nothing that silver is called "poor man's gold" for when the going gets tough it's the poor who disappear first under the wheels of the rich man's carriage. Thus, while the commodities rout has resulted in gold dropping by about a quarter from its highs, silver has plunged by a staggering 50%. In the last update we thought it had bottomed at about $12.30 as it was so oversold, but after a brief recovery rally it fell even further to an intraday low at about $10.20 on Thursday, hammered lower by continued dollar strength. Now, however, with signs that gold has hit bottom, or is about to, and good reasons to believe that the dollar is topping out, as set out in the Gold Market update, the savage decline in silver looks to have about run its course.

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Gold Extremely Oversold Suggests Imminent Bottom / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Clive_Maund

A confluence of factors suggests that we have just seen the bottom in gold and silver, or if not that the bottom is very close. The last update called the bottom too early as renewed dollar strength resulted in another downleg in the metals. After the recent heavy losses it may come as something of a surprise to many that the long-term chart for gold still looks positive, with the drop looking like a fairly normal correction.

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Agri-Foods the Strategic Long-term Investment / Commodities / Agricultural Commodities

By: Ned_W_Schmidt

What happens when bad weather and a structural uptrend come together? The aftermath of Hurricane Ike may give us some insight. This week's chart is of global rice stocks. Rice, as we know, is an important food in many countries around the world. While rice stocks have improved, current stocks are equal to little more than two months of global consumption.

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

Gasoline Shortages And Higher Prices Expected / Commodities / Gas - Petrol

By: Mike_Shedlock

There is an excellent discussion of the Implications of a Ten Day Refinery Outage on The Oil Drum. I encourage everyone to take a look. The comments are good too. Here are a few snips.
Insight 4. It is likely that we will have product shortages for at least the next three to four weeks, because of shut in refinery capacity and reduced refinery runs.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

Gold Boxed-in Wating for Bullish or Bearish Breakout / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Merv_Burak

Tuesday took all of the steam out of the two week rally but then that was it. The rest of the week was basically a lateral drift. More downside or continued upside? Let's see.

GOLD : LONG TERM - The week's activity still did nothing for the long term. The P&F chart continues to be bearish and the indicators are all in the negative zone. On the long term the rating remains BEARISH until some more significant market action takes place.

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

When the Gold's all Gone, the Market will go Nuts! / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks

By: The_Gold_Report

John Embry, Chief Investment Strategist for Sprott Asset Management and renowned industry expert, has researched the sector for 30 years. He expresses disbelief as he explains today's irrational pricing in this exclusive interview with The Gold Report . He attributes gold's alarming distress to "violent intervention by the paper players." But he's convinced they can only hold prices down for so long and forecasts four-digit gold by January 2009. Juniors present the best opportunity to leverage the coming gold price explosion and he shares his favorite names.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Commodities and Oil Bull Markets Crushed / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Zeal_LLC

After starting to recover a bit in mid-August, commodities have just been crushed in September. Selling is overwhelming and universal, shattering countless technical support lines. Investors' capital is being destroyed at a breathtaking rate. Fears are running very high and the financial media is gleefully declaring that “the commodities bubble has burst”.

Being heavily invested in this commodities bull myself, the intense selling in the last couple of weeks has indeed been painful. From the blizzard of e-mails I've received, it's apparent that even long-time investors are losing faith in this bull's longevity. As always during such a brutal hammering, capitulation is tempting. That's our natural human instinct when the markets move against us fast and hard.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Gold Bounces on Building Treasury Bonds Deflation Trade / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Adrian_Ash

SPOT GOLD PRICES for physical metal rose steadily overnight in Asia and London on Friday, bouncing 2.8% from yesterday's 11-month low to touch $758 an ounce as world stock markets also ticked higher.

Crude oil struggled above $102 per barrel despite Hurricane Ike strengthening as it heads for the oil-rich Texas coast.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Gold Very Oversold, US Dollar Very Overbought / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Mark_OByrne

Gold was down again yesterday and fell to new 11 month lows at $742. Gold recovered in afterhours electronic trading and in Asian and early European trading today it has risen to over $755/oz. The dollar has fallen from recent highs against the euro of 1.3879 to less than 1.41 and oil has risen again on fears that Hurricane Ike may do more damage than expected to oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Crude Oil $200 a Barrel, What happened? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: INO

It's true, the rumors were circulating heavily when crude oil was trading at $145 a barrel that it was going to be hitting $200 a barrel in a matter of days or weeks at the very latest. Well, that never happened. Crude oil learned that gravity plays a part in every commodity market's life.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Gold $2,000 an Ounce What Happened? / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: INO

To many it is quite surprising that gold is getting closer to 700 an ounce rather than the 2,000 many were calling for. When gold was trading at the 1,000 level many people were expecting this market to zoom to 2,000 an ounce.

When we first suggested that gold had actually given us a sell signal we received numerous e-mails, many of which were not flattering and some were just downright ugly. "How could you short gold are you an imbecile" and that was one of the nicer emails.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

OPEC Died Decades Ago / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Mike_Shedlock

Inquiring minds are considering an article entitled The Death Of OPEC .
Saudi Arabia walked out on OPEC yesterday. It said it would not honor the cartel's production cut. It was tired of rants from Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the well-dressed oil minister from Iran.

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Friday, September 12, 2008

Gold Price Manipulation or Deflationary Crash? / Commodities / Gold & Silver

By: Richard_J_Greene

The relentless selling we have seen over the past month in precious metals was kicked off by the manipulative interventions occurring right around the time of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implosions in mid-July.  Unprecedented short selling by two major banks in the futures market along with waves of naked short selling of resource stocks pushed indices and stocks through technical support on charts.  Yamana Gold, which is one of the most successful gold companies saw short interest rise 72% in the first two weeks of August (without counting all the naked shorts). There is no reason to short this stock; it has been a star performer.  Many investors have given up and portfolio managers that haven't given up are now forced to sell due to redemptions.  These investors believe that the market is telling them a message and don't realize it is not a market message but a heavily controlled manipulation to make them believe so and to dupe them out of their positions. 

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Friday, September 12, 2008

The Great Unwinding of the Commodities Carry Trade / Commodities / Credit Crisis 2008

By: Mike_Shedlock

Commodity Bulls Jump The Shark
The GlobeAndMail is reporting on The Real Reason Commodities Are Tumbling .
To hear Donald Coxe tell it, the commodity selloff ripping through Canada's stock market is no accident. It is the result of a deliberate, brilliantly executed plan hatched at the highest levels of the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury.

U.S. authorities engineered the collapse in commodities a move he said was necessary to shore up the global financial system to be bitter. My attitude is, goddamn it, they're good it was brilliant.

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