Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Sunday, October 17, 2021
Went Long the Crude Oil? Beware of the Headwinds Ahead… / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Submissions
Falling oil demand and bearish US inventories are not of any good to WTI investors. However, a deeper slide might be a great place to enter the trade…
Fundamental Analysis
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has downgraded its estimate of world oil demand for 2021. The demand has been lower than expected so far despite strong prospects for the end of the year.
In fact, in its monthly report, the cartel estimates that oil demand will rebound by 5.82 million barrels per day (mb/d) this year, while it forecast 5.96 mb/d last month.
Tuesday, October 12, 2021
Crimex Silver: Murder Most Foul / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: The_Gold_Report
Precious metals expert Michael Ballanger decries last week's manipulations in the silver market. Anyone schooled in the Canadian educational system in the 1960s is by default familiar with William Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet about a Danish prince that seeks revenge upon his uncle who was believed to have murdered his father to seize the Danish throne. As students forced to utilize a learning method called “rote,” we had to memorize literally the entire scene where the ghost of the murdered king utters those immortal words “Murder most foul.” Claimed to be the “most-filmed” of all literary works, Hamlet was also the genesis of Bob Dylan’s 17-minute-long ballad whose topic was JFK’s assassination in Dallas in November 1963, an event virtually every baby-boomer remembers vividly.
"Last Wednesday, traders watched an aberration, a deformity in the principles of “best price possible.”
They should also add September 29, 2021, to the list of notable murders because the victim this time was the integrity of the Comex trading arena (or “theater” in honor of Willie Shakespeare). To an even greater degree, it marked the final death of any respect or reverence for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) because between the Crimex “exchange” and the CFTC, the rare remaining believers in free-market capitalism were led to slaughter by a mob of hedge funds that decided to take full and blatant advantage of the lack of regulatory oversight in order to pad their bonus pools the second-to-last trading day of the third quarter of 2021.
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Sunday, October 10, 2021
Gold Price Outlook: The Inflation Chasm Between Europe and the US / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: P_Radomski_CFA
With inflation more than two times lower in Europe than in the US, the divergence between the economic zones deepens day by day. How might it impact gold?
QE Infinity
While I’ve warned on several occasions that the Fed and the ECB are worlds apart, the latter now wants to provide more QE once it concludes QE. To explain, with the ECB’s PEPP program set to expire at the end of March 2022, the central bank is increasingly worried about a bond market sell-off. And with sluggish Eurozone growth, exorbitant sovereign debt and a lack of fiscal impulse increasing the ECB’s anxiety, officials are studying “alternatives” to suppress interest rates in the Eurozone’s most debt-ridden countries.
Friday, October 08, 2021
Gold and Silver: Your Financial Main Battle Tanks / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: MoneyMetals
Armored vehicle-enabled soldiers and the designers who build them understand that a main battle tank must balance three critical elements in order to "complete the mission."
This has been true conceptually since the time of David and Goliath, the Three Hundred Spartans at Thermopylae, with Alexander the Greats' elite Silver Shields, and tank battles in four Israeli wars.
As an analogy for those who acquire and hold precious metals, it offers a close fit to their own ability to "complete the financial mission" of asset protection and growth.
First, a main battle tank must have superior firepower, being able to reliably counter and defeat its adversaries on the field of battle.
Thursday, October 07, 2021
Gold: Evergrande Investors' Savior / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: The_Gold_Report
Sector expert Michael Ballanger links debt and wolf packs in this exploration of the effects that the troubled Chinese company will have on gold.
When I first launched the GGMA Advisoryservice in January 2020, the very first Forecast Issue dealt with the globe's number one ailment, and it was not then, and is not today, related to mankind's physical health but rather its financial health. The word that kept resonating throughout that issue was debt.
If the global financial system was a human body, debt would be the fatty tissue that surrounds and clogs our organs, while recessions would be the fasting that rids the body of type 2 diabetes, obesity and depression. The problem that I identified as early as 2008 was that those that would manage our lives (whether elected or unelected) carry a belief system that holds that the best cure for obesity is a bowl of chicken noodle soup followed by six Big Macs and a big slice of apple pie.
"Debt default in tough times is the economic wolf pack that culls the economy of inefficient businesses and excesses."
In other words, it has been debt that has caused the past two major financial upheavals, and both involved the unprecedented creation of mind-boggling amounts of debt in order to avoid the natural cleansing of debt that occurs during economic downturns.
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Wednesday, October 06, 2021
Precious Metals Complex Searching for a Bottom / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Rambus_Chartology
Lets start with the BPGDM, Gold miners bullish percent chart which has just made a lower low along with the GDX on top. If you recall I was looking for some kind of divergence between the 2 which hasn’t happened yet red arrows on right side of the chart. There is no doubt that the BPGDM is trading down toward the low end of its range between 100 on top and zero on the bottom. It would be nice to see the GDX on top trade back above the 2016 horizontal S&R line at 30.50.
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Tuesday, October 05, 2021
Why Silver Price Could Crash by 20%! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Nadeem_Walayat
It has been a while since my last in-depth analysis of Silver as the commodity is not on my investing or trading radar with my primary focus on AI stocks, the stock market in general ahead of an expected significant correction and even the possibility of a market panic event to capitalise upon (Dow Trend Forecast Sept 2021 to May 2022). Nevertheless early in the course of this analysis I did post a quick technical take in market briefs that warned of a possible 20% crash in the silver price that this analysis seeks to expand on to conclude in a detailed trend forecast into mid 2022.
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Tuesday, October 05, 2021
Natural Gas News: Europe Lacks Supply, So It Turns to Asia / Commodities / Natural Gas
By: Paul_Rejczak
What’s happening in the natural gas markets? Prices are surging like crazy. The answer may be complex, but I’m here to provide it.
Market Analysis
Today, we expect the market to be accumulating since the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday reported an injection of 88 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas into storage for the week ending on Sept. 24. This could indeed be explained by warmer temperatures and entering the month of October.
Monday, October 04, 2021
Gold’s Century - While stocks dominated headlines, gold quietly performed / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Michael_J_Kosares
1. Gold has produced positive returns in 16 of the last 20 years.
2. Gold’s average annual return compounded since 2001 is 10.32%. (2001-2020)
3. Gold has been a portfolio stalwart. A $100,000 investment in gold in January 2001 would be worth about $655,000 today. At gold’s peak in 2020, it would have been worth over $750,000.
4. Gold does not have a political preference. Its ascent has occurred during the terms of four presidents – two Democrats (Bill Clinton and Barack Obama) and two Republicans (George Bush and Donald Trump). Its largest gain – 31.92% in 2007 – came under a Republican (Bush). Its second-largest increase – 29.24% in 2009 – came under a Democrat (Obama).
5. Gold is not swayed by who leads the Federal Reserve. Its ascent has occurred during the terms of four different Fed chairs with four distinctly different styles and approaches to monetary policy – Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, and Jerome Powell – and under a variety of economic circumstances and events.
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Monday, October 04, 2021
US Dollar on plan, attended by the Gold/Silver ratio / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Gary_Tanashian
US dollar (DXY) has activated its Inverted H&S, Gold/Silver maintains its uptrend, watch silver going foward…
I do not make predictions because I do not pretend to be a guru.* But NFTRH has been tracking what has been an uptrend in the US dollar for all of 2021, keeping us well aware of the potentials being realized from late summer into the fall. A higher low was made in May and now a higher high, completing an Inverted Head & Shoulders pattern that we’ve been projecting since USD put in the theoretical right side shoulder last spring.
Until recently it was a projection. Now it is active after testing the (dashed) neckline, holding the (blue) 50 day average and busting to a new high for the cycle. Simple, no predictions but a heck of a lot of attention and respect for the process.
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Sunday, October 03, 2021
US Close to Hitting the Debt Ceiling: Gold Doesn’t Care / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Another fiscal year, another governmental fight to raise the debt limit. A failure spells a crisis, but gold turns a blind eye and continues its fall.So, America has a new tradition! The government shutdown is coming. A new fiscal year starts tomorrow, and if Congress fails to agree on a budget by the end of today, the government will shut down.
What does it mean for the US economy? According to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the failure to lift the debt ceiling could be a catastrophe:
If the debt ceiling is not raised, there would be a financial crisis, a calamity. It would undermine confidence in the dollar as a reserve currency (…) It would be a wound of enormous proportions (…) It is imperative that Congress swiftly addresses the debt limit. If it does not, America would default for the first time in history. The full faith and credit of the United States would be impaired, and our country would likely face a financial crisis and economic recession.
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Thursday, September 30, 2021
Dovish to Hawkish Fed: Sounds Bearish for Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: P_Radomski_CFA
With a more hawkish Fed disposition, non-commercial traders remaining dollar-strong, and the EUR/USD sinking, it doesn’t bode well for the metals.
With U.S. Treasury yields continuing their ascent on Sep. 28, the mini taper tantrum pushed the NASDAQ 100 over a cliff. And with the USD Index loving the surge in volatility, the greenback further cemented its breakout above the neckline of its inverse (bullish) head & shoulders pattern. And looking ahead, the momentum should continue. Case in point: Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee on Sep. 28. In his prepared remarks, he said:
“Inflation is elevated and will likely remain so in coming months before moderating. As the economy continues to reopen and spending rebounds, we are seeing upward pressure on prices, particularly due to supply bottlenecks in some sectors. These effects have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, but they will abate, and as they do, inflation is expected to drop back toward our longer-run 2 percent goal.”
Furthermore, while I’ve been warning for months that Powell remains materially behind the inflation curve, his prepared remarks didn’t have a single mention of “base effects” or “transitory.” Instead, the Fed chief’s new favorite buzz word is “moderating.”
Wednesday, September 29, 2021
Gold Could See Tapering as Soon as November! / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
It’s Powell’s doing, as always... the Chair signaled that tapering could be announced as soon as next month. What does this mean for gold bulls?In the latest edition of the Fundamental Gold Report, I covered the FOMC’s newest statement on monetary policy and the dot-plot. I concluded that “gold will struggle until the Fed’s tightening cycle is well underway”. As the chart below shows, the yellow metal has been struggling for the most part of this year, and I don’t expect any shifts from that trend anytime soon.
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Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Gold Medium-Term Downtrend: Gold Miners in the Lead / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: P_Radomski_CFA
Gold, silver, and mining stocks don’t need any help from the USDX or the stock market; they can decline all on their own – the miners in particular.
Last week, mining stocks declined quite visibly, and it happened without significant help from the USD Index and from the general stock market. Silver and gold were practically flat week-over-week, so was the USD Index, and the general stock market (S&P 500) was up by 0.51%. This means that gold stocks and silver stocks should have closed the week relatively unchanged (as gold and silver did), or move somewhat higher (similarly to other stocks, as sometimes miners take their lead).
Instead, all important proxies for the mining stocks moved lower and closed the week at new daily and weekly 2021 lows. The HUI Index and the GDX ETF were down by about 3%, the silver stocks (SIL ETF) were down by 3.6%, and the GDXJ ETF (proxy for junior miners) was down by 3.83%, which means that our short position in the latter just became even more profitable.
Monday, September 27, 2021
Gold When the Tight Economic Rope Slackens / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Gary_Tanashian
[edit] Upon completing the article I realized that no forward look at the economy and financial markets from an inflationary/deflationary point of view would be complete without consideration of the Yield Curve. Here is its status at the time of writing. It is making a steepening hint this week along with the rise in bond yields. That signaling is inflationary, at least for now. But in 2008 the curve morphed from an inflationary steepener to a deflationary one and that’s an important distinction.
You’ll notice that a blessed Goldilocks economy is mentioned below as a less favored option for 2022. She runs with a flattening curve like the one during the 2013-2019 phase. If it steepens forget about Goldilocks and prepare for either an inflationary or deflationary steepener.
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Saturday, September 25, 2021
Will Biden’s Neo-Populist Economic Doctrine Support Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: Arkadiusz_Sieron
Biden scaled back on his infrastructure bill. However, with all the remaining cards still in play, his economic agenda should be positive for gold.Inflation, bond yields, monetary policy… that’s all interesting and crucial to understand trends in the gold markets – but, hey, what’s up in politics? A lot has happened recently on this front. In particular, last month, the world was shocked by the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The messy pullover and the quick takeover of the country by the Taliban is not only the end of Biden’s honeymoon but also America’s great failure. Some analysts even say that the fall of Kabul is another Saigon time for the US. Indeed, it goes without saying that the collapse in Afghanistan is a huge blow to America’s reputation. So, it could weaken the faith in Uncle Sam and its currency, which could be positive for gold in the long run.
However, the end of the US mission in Afghanistan doesn’t pose any direct threats to America (although terrorism could thrive under the Taliban regime) or to the greenback. So, I don’t expect any substantial, long-lasting moves in gold prices (always remember that geopolitical events cause only short-lived fluctuations, if any).
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Saturday, September 25, 2021
Crude Oil Price Piercing the Sky: Where Will We See the Black Gold by Xmas? / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Paul_Rejczak
Knock, knock? Is it already the sky, or just a ceiling? Either way, oil has risen substantially — how high can it go?
Fundamental Updates
The crude closed on highs on Thursday thanks to optimism about demand as well as the remaining tight supply. In fact, this increase is driven by a general market sentiment that is relatively favorable to the macroeconomic situation and the conviction that supply should remain tight until the end of 2021.
The WTI crude oil futures rose 1.5% - more than $1 compared to Wednesday's close. Like Wall Street, the oil market has also been sensitive to more and more reassuring tone of messages from China about the situation of real estate developer Evergrande, which is on the verge of default. In addition, the acceleration of air travel caused by Washington lifting restrictions on entry into the United States could also boost demand for kerosene. And finally, while natural gas prices are hanging from the ceiling, we could see a shift in demand from gas to oil happening, which would obviously boost the barrel rally in Q4!
Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Trading Crude Oil ETFs in Foreign Currencies: What to Focus On / Commodities / Exchange Traded Funds
By: Paul_Rejczak
Trading energy ETFs outside of US exchanges can be tricky, as it often means lower liquidity and some latency, but is it worth trying? Definitely!
Let’s do a comparative study between the WTI Crude Oil (CL) and an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) tracking this energy commodity as the underlying asset.
Prelude
In the previous two-part series (see Part I & Part II), we presented different ways to trade energies such as stocks, ETFs, CFDs and futures. We saw that picking the right instrument or vehicle depended on businesses, regions, risk profiles, psychology, etc. So, today, as an example, we will compare the well-known WTI Crude Oil (CL) futures contract (quoted in US dollars) with a 2:1 (2x) leveraged ETF traded in Toronto, in Canadian dollars.
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Silver Futures Market Speculators Crushed Again / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: MoneyMetals
The gold and silver futures markets were designed to increase volatility and discourage physical ownership of precious metals, as revealed in 1970s-era disclosures. The futures markets have also created opportunities for manipulation.
Today, the corruption is on full display for anyone who cares to look at the Wiki-Leaks documents, criminal prosecutions, and the other piles of evidence detailing foul play.
Yet the global price for precious metals is still set by these futures markets. And the trading volume has even grown, even as prices appear increasingly unhinged from fundamental drivers impacting supply and demand for the underlying metals.
Monday, September 20, 2021
Two Huge, Overlooked Drains on Global Silver Supplies / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2021
By: MoneyMetals
Precious metals markets got dealt a technical blow after gold and silver sold off on Thursday. Stronger-than-expected economic reports boosted the U.S. Dollar Index, which in turn gave futures traders all the rationale they needed to pound longs with sell orders.
Silver traded down to a slight new 2021 low. Unless prices recover quickly here and carve out a double bottom, stop-loss selling could send spot silver toward lower-range support levels from last year.
Meanwhile, gold is faring relatively better with prices still holding well within this year’s trading range. The gold to silver ratio has risen from a low of just under 64:1 in February to 77:1 as of Thursday’s close. Put another way, silver is now very cheap versus gold.
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