Analysis Topic: Commodity Markets - Metals, Softs & Oils
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Saturday, December 06, 2014
Global Crude Oil Consumption - What Countries Have Increased or Decreased Usage Since 2009? / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Mike_Shedlock
Reader David Epperson sent in some interesting charts on global oil usage that he produced from U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. The data is through the end of 2013.
David writes...
Read full article... Read full article...Hello Mish,
I was curious how much oil consumption had declined over the last few years, so I went to the EIA web site, downloaded the consumption data and produced the following charts.
Friday, December 05, 2014
Russia and China’s Natural Gas Deals Are a Death Knell for Canada’s LNG Ambitions / Commodities / Natural Gas
By: Marin_Katusa
In recent years, a number of Asian companies have been betting that Canada will be able to export cheap liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its west coast. These big international players include PetroChina, Mitsubishi, CNOOC, and, until December 3, Malaysian state-owned Petronas.
However, that initial interest is decidedly on the wane. In fact, while the British Columbia LNG Alliance is still hopeful that some of the 18 LNG projects that have been proposed will be realized, it’s now looking less and less likely that any of these Canadian LNG consortia will ever make a final investment decision to forge ahead.
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Friday, December 05, 2014
Gold Shorting Exhaustion / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Zeal_LLC
Gold’s been on an incredible roller-coaster ride over the past couple months, whipsawing like crazy. And contrary to popular rationalizations, these swings had absolutely nothing to do with fundamentals. Their sole driver has been American speculators’ extreme shorting of gold futures, which has battered gold’s price around in the absence of investment demand. But this epic gold shorting looks exhausted.
The core mission of all trading, whether long-term investing or rapid-fire speculation, is buying low and selling high. That’s the only way to multiply wealth in the financial markets. Short sellers execute this same strategy, but reverse the order. They borrow assets they don’t own, sell them presumably high, and later hopefully buy them back low to repay their debts. The key to shorting is selling high, not selling low.
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Friday, December 05, 2014
Why OPEC Will Tolerate Cheap Crude Oil Price / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: John_Browne
Despite falling oil prices, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) voted on November 27th not to cut production in order to boost prices. The key to this decision appears to have been the attitude of Saudi Arabia, which has long been the first among equals in the coalition. Not surprisingly, the decision led to further oil price declines, and led many observers to conclude that OPEC has largely lost the ability to upwardly influence the price of petroleum. But this determination ignores the wider geopolitical considerations that may be convincing Saudi Arabia to be perfectly content, for now, with lower prices.
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Friday, December 05, 2014
Gold Price Post Referendum Bounce / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Alasdair_Macleod
It turns out the Swiss referendum last weekend which sought to force the Swiss National Bank to maintain 20% gold reserves was a red herring so far as precious metal markets are concerned. It was fairly obvious before the referendum that no sensible trader would had bought gold in the expectation it would go through, so there would be few short-term sellers afterwards. Equally, it was so obvious to traders the referendum would fail that there may have been some short-sellers, or perhaps deferred buying waiting for the event to pass.
Friday, December 05, 2014
Commodities and the U.S. Dollar / Commodities / Commodities Trading
By: Alasdair_Macleod
Each commodity market has its own story to tell: oil prices are falling because OPEC can’t agree production cuts, steel faces a glut from overcapacity, and even the price of maize has fallen, presumably because of good harvests.
In local currencies this is not so much the case. Of course, the difference between prices in local currencies and prices in US dollars is reflected in the weakness of most currencies against the dollar in the foreign exchange markets. This tells us that whatever is happening in each individual commodity and in each individual currency the common factor is the US dollar.
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Friday, December 05, 2014
ECB Draghi’s QE Battle With Germany; Rules Out ECB Gold Buying / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: GoldCore
The European Central Bank will decide early next year whether to follow the Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the Bank of Japan with quantitative easing or money creation to buy government bonds and other assets but will not buy gold, its president Mario Draghi said yesterday.
Speaking in the ECB's new 1.3 billion euro headquarters, an imposing Frankfurt skyscraper designed to show the strength of the ‘single’ currency, Draghi threw down the gauntlet to Germany and signaled that he would not allow opposition from Germany or anyone else to stop the ECB’s QE.
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Friday, December 05, 2014
The Precious Metals Guarantee / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis
A friend recently sent me a picture of a 1957 $1 silver certificate he found in his change while buying a cup of coffee. He’d been a coin collector as a kid and learned that his father carried nearly the same note in his wallet.
When I brought up Gresham’s law and the recent news that U.S. public and private debt had just breached the $18 trillion mark, it made very little impression, other than a brief pause in thought, though barely recognition.
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Friday, December 05, 2014
Gold Market Manipulation, US Resorts to Illegality to Protect Failed Financial Policies / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Paul_Craig_Roberts
In a blatant and massive market intervention, the price of gold was smashed on Friday. Right after the Comex opened on Friday morning 7,008 paper gold contracts representing 20 tonnes of gold were dumped in the New York Comex futures market at 8:50 a.m. EST. At 12:35 a.m. EST 10,324 contracts representing 30 tonnes of gold were dropped on the Comex futures market:
Friday, December 05, 2014
39 cent Gasoline, Man that is GREAT ! A Cautionary Tale / Commodities / Gas - Petrol
By: Submissions
Nicholas Migliaccio writes: It was sad at today's Update Webinar to hear these esteemed TA market guys falling all over themselves, whistling past the graveyard so they didn't have to call what the markets were doing as Rolling over in to a DownTrend.
OMG, did I let that Awful world DOWNTREND see daylight.......? Oh NO ! Sad, these guys are SO mainstream paradigm that you could hear them tremble. Damn shame, another place, another time, you'd pub up with them for a beer. Now however they are just apologists trying to save their salaries. Investors don't buy their services when they are not outright bullish. I mean I cannot even get educated astute business people to execute a Sell STOP after their Limit gets violated, that is how brain-washed people are.
Friday, December 05, 2014
US's Debt Not Such a Big Deal - Mr. Gold / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Gary_Tanashian
Mr. Gold's last paragraph is the tell on his bias, as he is unwilling or unable to conceal the contempt he has for people who were absolutely right for 10 years+ and are now suffering a bear market, both to their asset of choice and in sound monetary thinking.
Read full article... Read full article..."The vastly improved fiscal situation may last only a few years, but it's a big plus for U.S. markets and the U.S. dollar -- and another nail in the coffin for the gold bugs and doom-and-gloomers who can add one more item to the long list of things they got really, really wrong."
Thursday, December 04, 2014
OPEC is Playing a Losing Hand (Get Ready to Win Some Heavy Money) / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Money_Morning
Every 10 or 20 years a series of watershed events come together that change the face of the international energy picture.
The Saudi-led oil war is one of these pivotal situations.
And while others are fretting about what the OPEC production move means, I’m actually meeting with the guys who made the decision.
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Thursday, December 04, 2014
New Signs Gold and Silver Are Returning as Monetary Assets / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Submissions
Stefan Gleason writes: Much to the chagrin of the financial elite, gold and silver are reentering the American consciousness and starting to shake the wing nutty image of their recent past. But it’s taken a global financial crisis to get the public’s attention – one that could wipe out our nation at almost any moment.
The U.S. government’s role in the economy is on a seemingly interminable upward trajectory. The government’s official debt balance that just crossed the $18 trillion mark (with additional unfunded liabilities estimated at more than $100 trillion). Half the population now lives in households that receive government payments.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
With The U.S Market Looking Bullish, How Do You Invest In Gold? / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Submissions
Nicholas Maithya writes: This year has been one of the best for US equities in recent times, at least judging by the movement of the leading indices – the S&P 500 (SPX), the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), and the NASDAQ Composite (IXIX), along with their corresponding ETFS. They have all rallied to record highs this year, albeit with dips and rebounds that often characterize an upward trending market.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Gold 2014 YTD in JPY, EUR, GBP and USD / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: GoldCore
Despite the worst sentiment towards gold we have seen since the brief 30% price fall in 2008, gold continues to eke out gains in all major currencies. So far in 2014, gold is 14.3%, 12.3%, 5.8% and 0.4% higher in japanese yen, euros, sterling and dollars respectively (see chart).
Thursday, December 04, 2014
The Myth of Lower Oil Prices Will Hit Consumers / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: Money_Morning
Michael E. Lewitt writes: Media elites and Wall Street cheerleaders are greeting lower oil prices with open arms.
Investors should beware these self-appointed experts bearing gifts.
Oil prices are falling for reasons that should be surprising to nobody: supply has been rising and demand has been falling. If prolonged, which it is likely to be, the drop in oil prices is going to be destabilizing geopolitically and damaging economically.
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Thursday, December 04, 2014
Could Falling Crude Oil Prices Spark a Financial Crisis? / Commodities / Crude Oil
By: OilPrice_Com
The oil and gas boom in the United States was made possible by the extensive credit afforded to drillers. Not only has financing come from company shareholders and traditional banks, but hundreds of billions of dollars have also come from junk-bond investors looking for high returns.
Junk-bond debt in energy has reached $210 billion, which is about 16 percent of the $1.3 trillion junk-bond market. That is a dramatic rise from just 4 percent that energy debt represented 10 years ago.
Thursday, December 04, 2014
Gold Price Will Regain Its Shine in 2015 / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2015
By: The_Gold_Report
For all the talk of gold sinking remorselessly to $1,000 an ounce, the metal has risen to $1,200 per ounce and has held its ground. Have we seen the bottom? Money managers Doug Loud and Jeff Mosseri of Greystone Asset Management say that if we haven't seen the bottom, we will soon. In this interview with The Gold Report, they predict that the next bull market will result in patient investors realizing gains in the multiples and suggest several companies poised to break out.
Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Silver Turns Strongly Bullish / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Clive_Maund
Much of what is written in the parallel Gold Market update applies equally to silver, and it will not be repeated here.
On silver's 6-month chart we can see how it broke well below its November lows in the early trade yesterday, in response to the "No" vote in Switzerland on the referendum on whether to partially back the Swiss Franc with gold, but then it came back strongly on big volume to almost entirely erase Friday's sharp losses, leaving behind a large Bull Hammer on its chart. While the "tail" of this hammer is rather short in relation to its "real body", meaning the trading between the open and the close, the big daily range and massive volume means that it can be considered as a valid reversal hammer. This action is indicative of an important reversal, and here we should note that it is normal for the price to back and fill for a little while after the appearance of such a hammer, before the nascent uptrend it signifies gets underway, which is why we are not concerned by today's reaction. As we can see on the chart, the price is still being constrained by the downtrend line shown and the 50-day moving average, but these impediments should not stop it for long - once the price does break above them it should advance smartly, especially as sentiment towards silver has been terribly negative in the recent past.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2014
Gold Turns Bullish / Commodities / Gold and Silver 2014
By: Clive_Maund
Yesterday was an extraordinary day in the Precious Metals markets, with a good chance that it signals the reversal from the brutal 3-year plus bear market that so many have waited so long to see. The day started with gold and silver plunging on the news that the Swiss voted against backing their currency with gold, but later in the day they rallied strongly on heavy turnover to close with giant reversal candlesticks on their charts. Regardless of the reasons for this bizarre behavior, technically this action looks very positive, and this is written with the awareness that gold has reacted back this morning on dollar strength.
On gold's 6-month chart we can see how it approached its November lows in the early trade after the Swiss vote, but rallied strongly on big volume to close above its November highs, above the recently failed key support that is now resistance and above its 50-day moving average, which was quite an accomplishment, leaving behind a large "Bullish Engulfing Pattern" on its chart. This points to a probable strong advance dead ahead, so today's reaction should be used to clear out any short positions, and also to go long aggressively with stops below the November low. This action by gold, and by silver, suggests that the current bull Flag in the dollar, which is getting a bit "long in the tooth", may be about to abort.
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