Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.Friday, March 30, 2018
Silver Mining Stocks SIL ETF Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2018
The silver miners’ stocks have really languished since mid-2016, relentlessly grinding sideways to lower. With gold out of favor, silver and its miners have largely been left for dead and forgotten. This sector is deeply mired in universal apathy and bearishness. But since silver stocks can skyrocket when silver decisively rallies again, it’s important to keep an eye on silver miners’ fundamentals like their recent Q4’17 results.
Four times a year publicly-traded companies release treasure troves of valuable information in the form of quarterly reports. Required by securities regulators, these quarterly results are exceedingly important for investors and speculators. They dispel all the sentimental distortions surrounding prevailing stock-price levels, revealing the underlying hard fundamental realities. They serve to re-anchor perceptions.
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Thursday, March 29, 2018
Gold’s Old Friend Comes Back / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Remember LIBOR? The interest rate which soared during the global financial crisis? It’s on the rise again, but almost no one is paying adequate attention to it. We are – and we will analyze for you what this means for the gold market.
Hello LIBOR, My Old Friend
Simon and Garfunkel sang about darkness, the old friend. We can refer these words to LIBOR which has come to talk with us again. I bet you remember the Great Recession well. But let me briefly remind you that LIBOR soared in 2008 as banks were reluctant to lend to each other. The stress in the financial system fueled fears, increased risk premia and made LIBOR rise. Gold shined then. Just see the chart below.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Building The World's Largest Solar Project / Commodities / Solar Energy
Saudi Arabia wants to pour $200 billion into solar to build the world's largest solar project.
The Saudi sovereign wealth fund and SoftBank Group Corp. of Japan jointly announced plans to build a solar project that is staggering in size – 200 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. That would be about 100 times larger than some of the largest projects in the world right now. "It's by far the biggest solar project ever," Masayoshi Son, CEO of SoftBank said at a news conference Tuesday in New York after signing a nonbinding agreement with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).
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Thursday, March 29, 2018
Can You Imagine $5000 GOLD? – I can, Here’s Why / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
My Bias: Long to a new all time high above 1827.
Wave Structure: Impulse structure to a new high.
Long term wave count: wave (3) above 1666.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Oil Prices Vs. Production: See the "Elephant" Almost Everyone Ignores / Commodities / Crude Oil
If production drives prices, how does oil rise 14x when production trends sideways for 10 years?
There's a widespread assumption that supply and demand drive oil prices. Almost all economists base their oil forecasts entirely on this premise, and so do many speculators.
If the oil industry ramps up production and increases supply, economists expect a drop in oil prices. If production decreases, or some other factors hint at supply constraints, they anticipate a rise in oil's price.
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Thursday, March 29, 2018
Outlook for Gold – Same but Different / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
“Some things never change. Some things do.” You might be wondering why we are quoting one of the lines from the Matrix movie. The reason is because that’s exactly what we can say about the gold market and the price patterns in it. The thing that never changes is the fact that gold will always somehow react to the fundamental news, but the way it reacts will vary over time. Moreover, this quote could describe the situation with the current analogies and price patterns in gold, silver and mining stocks. Because of the trade-war-based rally, they changed, but something didn’t. The outlook that they imply.
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Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Petroyuan and Gold - The Single Biggest Change in Capital Markets of All Time / Commodities / Crude Oil
“China’s launch on Monday of its crude futures exchange will improve the clout of the yuan in financial markets and could threaten the international primacy of the dollar, argues a new report by Hayden Briscoe, APAC head of fixed income at UBS Asset Management. ‘This is the single biggest change in capital markets, maybe of all time,’ Briscoe said in a follow-up telephone interview.” – Kate Duguid, Reuters, 3-26-2018
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Silver Futures Report and JP Morgan Record Silver Bullion Holding Is Extremely Bullish / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
– Silver Futures Report, JP Morgan Record Silver Bullion Holding Is Extremely Bullish
– JP Morgan Continues Adding To Massive Silver Bullion Holdings (see chart)
– Silver Speculators Go Short – Which Is Extremely Bullish
– Stunning Silver COT Report: One For the Ages (see chart)
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
When Two Are Fighting, Gold Wins / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Do you hear the military march? The world’s largest economies are flexing their muscles and preparing for war. Will gold win the trade conflict between the United States and China?
So It Begins
Trade war. This topic dominated the recent days. Last week, President Trump announced plans for tariffs on about $60 billion of Chinese imports. In response, Liu He, China’s vice-prime minister, told Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Treasury Secretary, that China is ready to defend its interests. Indeed, on Friday the country announced plans to impose tariffs on about $3 billion of U.S. imports. So are we at war?
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
GOLD - GATA IS AT IT AGAIN / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
A new phrase has been added to our lexicon of late, and that is what has become known as "fake news." This new phraseology can be aptly applied to that which is presented by our old friends at the GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action) committee.
GATA has been trying to convince all those who are willing to listen that it is not its fault that the metals market dropped from 2011 to 2015 (where silver lost 75% of its value). Rather than admitting that it was not able to foresee a standard market correction -- which I warned about before it happened -- it has been focusing on that big bad scapegoat named "manipulation." And, it takes bits and pieces of what people say in order to "prove" its point.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Physical Gold Production May Be Peaking, But There Is No Shortage In Paper Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Gold production numbers for 2017 are still being compiled but estimates call for the first annual decline in mine output since 2008.The gold price fell dramatically in the months following the 2011 peak in prices. It has languished at, or near, the cost of production for years. Low gold prices are having a predictable effect on mine output.
Monday, March 26, 2018
Hi-Ho Silver! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
If the latest COT report for silver gets any more bullish than the one released on March 23rd, commercial traders will have to go ‘net long!’ As it is, they reduced their ‘net short’ position to the lowest number in many years, down to just 4,000 contracts – barely 2% of the total open interest! This is bullish action! As recently as January 16th the number of ‘net short’ positions was 50,000, and the percentage of open interest was 26%. (Charts are courtesy Goldchartsrus.com unless specified).
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Trade War and Silver CoT – Details and Implications / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Gold soared by the end of the week. Miners didn’t – the HUI didn’t even move above the previous March highs. Silver’s performance was rather mixed, but closer to the one of miners than the one of gold. Why did gold rally? Why didn’t miners rally? How can the silver CoT numbers help in this case?
Let’s start with the first question. Why did gold rally in the final part of the previous week? The first reason was likely the increased tension regarding interest rates and Powell’s first Fed meeting. This was likely to cause only temporary volatility and it seems that it did. Based on how mining stocks performed relative to the gold market, it certainly seems that the precious metals market wants to go down. But, there’s another fundamental development that triggered another rally in gold (to a smaller extent) – the trade war. This term is too far-fetched – it’s just a trade battle for now. Let’s focus on the practical implications for the precious metals market. In short, just like a few threats between the U.S. and North Korea, the trade tensions between the U.S. and China are a geopolitical event.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Time To Buy Gold As A 'Safe Haven' / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
For those that follow me regularly, you will know that I have been tracking a set up for the GLD as a proxy for gold. I believe that the GLD can outperform the general equity market once we confirm a long term break out has begun, and I still think we can see it in occur in 2018. This week, I will provide an update to the GLD. While I have gone on record as to why I do not think the GLD is a wise long-term investment hold, I will still use it to track the market movements.
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Monday, March 26, 2018
Gold Cycle Anomaly & USD Cycles / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Gold update: While I don’t care much for Cycle anomalies (i.e. short of long cycle), I am not going to fight them. Therefore, I am very bullish on Gold given the short ICL that has been left behind but the yellow metal has disappointed before so we still need to be cautious until the next resistance between 1360-1377 is taken out. The next week or 2 are critical, IMO and Gold needs to show some bullish follow through. My first 5+ year Weekly clearly shows that Gold has been forming a 5 year Inverse Head & Shoulders pattern and should explode higher once the over head resistance I have mentioned is taken out.
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Saturday, March 24, 2018
Will Gold Price Breakout? 3 Things to Watch… / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
Gold has firmed above $1300 in recent days and is holding comfortably above $1300 for now. We think the market will break to the upside sometime this year. The question is when. Here are 3 things to watch that will tell us if Gold is on the cusp of that break-out soon or later.
First, keep your eye on Gold’s close at the end of next week. It’s not only the end of the week and month but also the end of the quarter. While Gold has traded above $1350 multiple times in the past two years, it has not made a quarterly close above $1330 since 2012. Since this is a quarterly time frame, we would need to see a close above $1340 or even $1345 to mark a significant breakout. If Gold can make such a close next Friday then the odds are good that it could break above $1375 fairly soon.
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Friday, March 23, 2018
Gold and Silver Possession Is a Constitutional Right – and a Practical Imperative / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
By David Smith, It's a safe bet that most readers of this column who hold physical precious metals – gold, silver, platinum and palladium – do so because they view them as a store of value. Gold and silver especially, have served in the role of honest money for at least five millennia.
With a melting point 700 degrees higher than gold, the Spaniards weren't able to determine how to utilize platinum, but they still considered it to be valuable, calling it platina – "little silver." It would be tossed it back into a stream so that it might be able to "grow up"!
Friday, March 23, 2018
Gold Junior Mining Stocks GDXJ Fundamentals / Commodities / Gold and Silver Stocks 2018
The junior gold miners’ stocks have spent much of the past year grinding sideways near lows, sapping confidence and breeding widespread bearishness. The entire precious-metals sector has been left for dead, eclipsed by the dazzling taxphoria stock-market rally. But traders need to keep their eyes on the fundamental ball so herd sentiment doesn’t mislead them. The juniors’ recent Q4 results proved quite strong.
Four times a year publicly-traded companies release treasure troves of valuable information in the form of quarterly reports. Required by securities regulators, these quarterly results are exceedingly important for investors and speculators. They dispel all the sentimental distortions surrounding prevailing stock-price levels, revealing the underlying hard fundamental realities. That serves to re-anchor perceptions.
Read full article... Read full article...
Friday, March 23, 2018
Global Trade War Fears See Precious Metals Gain And Stocks Fall / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
– Market turmoil as trade war concerns deepen and Trump appoints war hawk Bolton
– Oil, gold and silver jump as ‘Russia China Hawk’ Bolton appointed
– Oil up 4%, gold up 2.2% and silver up 1.6% this week (see table)
– Stocks down sharply – Nikkei down 4.5%, S&P 4.3% & Nasdaq 5.5%
– Bolton scares jittery markets already shell-shocked by US’ tariffs against China
– Currency wars and trade wars tend to proceed actual wars
– Gold now outperforming stocks year to date (see table)
Friday, March 23, 2018
Debt Cycles and Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2018
There is a range of factors which drive the Kondratiev waves. Following Schumpeter, we have focused so far on technological innovations. However, debt cycles are also a key. What are they?
The debt cycles are comprised of alternate leveraging and deleveraging of debt. The former occurs when people incur debt, increasing the debt-to-income ratio, or the debt-to-assets ratio. The latter is the opposite, so it means paying back the debts, which leads to the decrease in the amount of debt relative to wages or assets.
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