Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils

The analysis published under this topic are as follows.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Gold at ECB: Accident or Strategy? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Axel_Merk

When the euro was launched, the European Central Bank (ECB) held approximately 15% of its assets in gold. That ratio has remained reasonably stable, giving rise to a variety of chatter, including suggestions that it may displace the U.S. dollar. We pursue the question on whether the ECB’s gold holdings are an accident or strategy.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Gold And Silver Await The Starting Gun / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Bob_Kirtley

This week is another political week in that we have meetings across the board involving the ECB and the Federal Reserve followed by the job numbers on Friday. All of these meetings, summits, announcements have an effect on the investment community in that investment funds tend to stay on the sidelines until the direction of the markets becomes clear. Alas, we suspect that by the end of this week the anticipated clarity will be as clear as mud.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Where Are Oil Prices Headed? Is the Eurozone Doomed? / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: OilPrice_Com

As markets continue to yo-yo and commentators deliver mixed forecasts, investors are faced with some tough decisions and have a number of important questions that need answering. On a daily basis we are asked what's happening with oil prices alongside questions on China's slowdown, which commodities or instruments will provide safety in the current environment, will the Euro-zone split in the future and what impact the presidential election is going to have on the economy and markets?

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Will a Stocks Bear Market Hurt Gold Stocks? / Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks

By: Jordan_Roy_Byrne

The relationship between gold stocks (while in a secular bull market) and the broad market (while in a secular bear market) is difficult to diagnose and that is what makes it so interesting. There is no single rule of thumb or axiom we can trust because history is quite varied. There are instances of the gold stocks crashing with the stock market, rising with the stock market and rising substantially while the stock market endures a nasty bear market. Currently, the gold stocks are moving into the latter stages of their third secular bull market in the last 90 years. Yet, the equity market could be at risk of soon entering a cyclical bear market. In this article, we review some history between the gold stocks and the equity market before drawing conclusions relevant to the near future.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Gold and Silver Lessons from Pawn Stars / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Eric_McWhinnie

Despite being in a bull market for the past decade, precious metals are still widely under-owned by historical standards. The percentage of wealth held in gold and silver today fails in comparison to the last bull market thirty years ago. The investing world is heavily skewed towards paper assets, as traditional education methods focus on these types of investment vehicles far more than others. However, investors looking to diversify away from equities and bonds can learn about hard assets such as gold and silver if they watch close enough.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Stock to Flow - Silver Supply in a Fiat Depression / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis

Making a case for higher silver prices can involve two ways of looking at its supply:

1. The total amount of silver ever mined.
2. The total amount of silver available in investment grade bullion form.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Silver Price Investor Psychology / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis

People have a natural tendency to seek and understand value. The currently dominant baby boomer generation has a speculative mindset with regard to investment. The relatively frugal generation that lived through the first great depression is now fading in influence, along with their collective memory of harder times.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Why Is Future Silver Supply More at Risk than Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Steve_St_Angelo

The focus of the markets and the alternative media is firmly placed on the continued disintegration of the world financial system.  Many believe that the collapse of the fiat monetary system along with the global banking cartel is the worst possible outcome.  However, this may actually turn out to be the good news in a sea of bad news that is lurking around the corner.

As the world's attention is currently directed at its massive paper-debt dilemma, a physical problem looms larger each passing day.  This is what I call, the brontosaurus in the living room.  The information provided in this article may help connect the dots to the reader who has been grossly misinformed by the highly specialized analysts in the various industries and media.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Gold Investors Waiting for ECB Signal For Printing Money and Monetizing Debt / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Ben_Traynor

WHOLESALE quoted prices for gold bullion fell below $1620 an ounce during Monday morning's London session – slightly below last week's close – while stocks gained and US Treasuries fell, with markets focused on key monetary policy decisions due later in the week.

Silver bullion hovered around $27.70 an ounce – in line with Friday's close – while other commodities were also broadly flat.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Gold Market Sentiment Increasingly Positive / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: GoldCore

Today's AM fix was USD 1,616.50, EUR 1,317.87, and GBP 1,029.75 per ounce.
Friday’s AM fix was USD 1,618.75, EUR 1,321.43 and GBP 1,031.51 per ounce.

Silver is trading at $27.66/oz, €22.65/oz and £17.68/oz. Platinum is trading at $1,409.50/oz, palladium at $571.15/oz and rhodium at $1,125/oz.

Gold climbed $7.80 or 0.48% in New York on Friday and closed at $1,623.40/oz. Silver rose to a high of $27.839, edged off a few times, and ended with a gain of 0.98%.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Mass Exodus out of Gold Revealed by Trader Open Interest Reports / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Zeal_LLC

Gold has been deeply out of favor lately, languishing in its usual summer doldrums.  This sentiment wasteland is driving traders to flee wholesale, including the futures players.  Their mass exodus from the gold market is readily apparent in futures data.  But provocatively such behavior is a powerful contrarian indicator, heralding the birth of major new uplegs in gold.  Bearish futures traders are a bullish omen.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Gold Profits From Draghi's ECB Robbing Savings of Euro-zone Citizens / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Ben_Traynor

SPOT MARKET gold bullion hit a five-week high at $1625 an ounce during Friday morning's London trading, on course for a weekly gain that would see the pattern of alternating up and down weeks stretched to week number eleven.

Silver bullion also held onto most of its recent gains, trading around $27.70 per ounce for much of the morning.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Is the Commodities Boom Over? / Commodities / Commodities Trading

By: Puru_Saxena

The world’s economy is passing through a low growth environment and this is in stark contrast to the first half of the last decade, when we had a global boom.  Today, Europe is on the brink of recession, the US economy is growing at only 2% per year and it appears as though China is facing a major slowdown.  Given these circumstances, we are of the view that the prices of natural resources will struggle to retain last decade’s momentum.  

Friday, July 27, 2012

Is Auditing the Fed Positive for Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Vin_Maru

July 25, 2012 should go down in history as the date the Federal Reserve may become fully accountable to the US government. A motion to pass the bill as amended was unanimously approved by the house to require a full audit of the boards of governors of the Federal Reserve System and banks. This will be done by the Comptroller General of the US before the end of 2012 and they are required to issue their report within 12 months of enactment.  The votes in the House in the bill’s passing this was 326 yea votes to 99 nay votes with 7 non votes.  Interestingly enough it was the Republicans that strongly supported this bill with 239 yea and 1 nay vote, while the Democrats voted 88 yea and 98 nay.  

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Apocalypse Ahead, What Disaster Economics Means for Investors / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: William_Bancroft

A recent FT article about ‘Disaster Economics’ by Gillian Tett caught our attention. We’ve been fans of Ms Tett’s work for a while, especially her excellent book ‘Fool’s Gold’. This article was about the bond markets, but it was some interesting financial history and commentary that caught our attention.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Keys For the Next Gold Breakout / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: Clif_Droke

Gold's historic run-up from $250 to nearly $2,000 an ounce in the last 10 years has underlined the long-term value and intrinsic worth of a key asset. It has also provided a fabulous, once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunity for many individuals, not to mention a long-term momentum trade for both retail and institutional investors.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Is Gold Ready for Run to New All Time High? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2012

By: David_Banister

Just under two weeks ago I updated my subscribers with a chart pattern on the GLD ETF, and in that update we discussed what to look for to find clues in this GOLD consolidation that has continued from last August-September highs. My theory all along has been that we peaked in a “Wave Three” top at 1900-1920 last fall after a Fibonacci 34 month rally from $681 per ounce. The ensuing corrective patterns are part of a normal “Wave 4” consolidation that works off the sentiment and overbought nature of that wave 3 updraft. Following this consolidation, I fully expect GOLD to continue past the $1900 per ounce area and run to $2300 per ounce or higher in a Wave 5 rally into the summer of 2013.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Gold and Silver Jump to 3-Week Highs as ECB Chief Draghi Promises to Print Euro's / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Adrian_Ash

The WHOLESALE-MARKET gold price leapt more than 1% inside an hour in London trade Thursday morning, setting 3-week highs above $1620 per ounce after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said "The ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve" the single Euro currency.

"And believe me, it will be enough."

Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Hidden Cost of Peak Oil / Commodities / Crude Oil

By: Money_Morning

Don Miller writes: Most of what you've heard about "peak oil" is wrong.

In fact, there's a hidden cost to peak oil that's very real. And it's coming to a pump near you any day now.

I know you've read the same headlines that I have...how we are going to "frack" our way to energy independence by exploiting shale oil and other unconventional sources.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

China continues to buy strategic assets / Commodities / China

By: Ian_R_Campbell

As you no doubt know, yesterday China National Offshore Oil Corporation made a $15 billion, 61% premium to market, bid for Nexen Inc.  Nexen’s portfolio includes: