Commodities

Beat the Market with a Contrarian Strategy | Contrarian Profits wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
Natural gas exchange traded funds (ETFs) certainly haven’t been shouting as loud as those for other commodities (hello, oil), but they’ve been delivering the returns. The commodity has been a standout in what has been a rough and volatile market so far this year. The one-year anniversary of the First Trust ISE-Revere Natural Gas (FCG) has just passed and year-to-date, it’s up 29.5%. Since its inception on May 11, it’s returned 45%. CentreDaily reports that for companies to be a part of t

Read the rest of this great post here

ETF Trends - Keeping a grip on exchange traded funds (ETFs) wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05312008.html
The Worst is Yet to Come
Alexander Cockburn | May 31/June 1, 2008
Between Grant’s Pass, a pleasant retirement town in southern Oregon’s Siskiyou mountains, and the Californian fishing port of Crescent City, chiefly noted for the nightmarish state prison known as Pelican Bay, stretches route 199. It runs alongside the spectacularly beautiful Smith River ravine for some 50 miles. To drive it, particularly on long holiday weekends, can be a teeth-grinding, bumper-to-bumper affair. This last Memorial Day weekend, on  a late Sunday afternoon, I shot through in record time, meeting as little traffic as I normally would at 2 am.
For the first time since the national trauma known as the great gas shortage of 1973 Americans are experiencing a collective shock as they adjust to gasoline prices that are now three times higher than they were four years ago.
Last weekend, on the edge of what used to be a summer’s worth […]

Read the rest of this great post here

ETF Trends - Keeping a grip on exchange traded funds (ETFs) wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aHgEnZUKEeGY&refer=us
Dow Chemical Raises Prices, Paving Way for Hershey, Monsanto
Chris Burritt | May 29, 2008
Dow Chemical Co., the largest U.S. chemical maker, may not be the last to raise prices this year because of soaring raw materials costs.
Monsanto Co., Hershey Co., General Mills Inc. and Avery Dennison Corp. may follow suit, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. They’re among 11 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index that increased their so-called LIFO reserve, which captures rising inventory costs, by at least 20 percent over the past four quarters.
With oil and commodity prices at record highs, companies will be forced to pass on higher costs, analysts said after Dow Chemical announced yesterday it will raise prices by the most in its 111-year history. That will contribute to inflation, and may prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time in four years.
“We are going to see a cascading […]

Read the rest of this great post here

mutineermike wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
http://www.investmentweek.co.uk/public/showPage.html?page=796605
Oil will fall to $60 a barrel, says BDT manager
Natalie Kenway | May 30, 2008
Commodities will halve in price in the next five years and oil could fall to $60 a barrel in that time, according to BDT Invest founder Henry Thornton.
Thornton, manager of the firm’s Asia fund, said over the next six months the oil price could spike to $200 but the higher it gets the lower it will fall.
He said in developed regions oil is being charged at $130 a barrel but consumers in countries such as China, India and Indonesia where there is the fastest demand, consumers are paying the marginal cost of production, $60 a barrel.
“At some point in the emerging markets this will come up to the world price and the demand will fall over on its back. The price will retreat and settle at the marginal cost of production around $60. In the next […]

Read the rest of this great post here

mutineermike wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/shocked-how-the-oil-crisis-has-hit-the-world-837477.html
Shocked! How the oil crisis has hit the world
Andy McSmith, Jerome Taylor and Nigel Morris | May 31, 2008
British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week.
All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64)?
Great Britain
The rise in the oil price could not come at a worse time for Gordon Brown. After a week that has seen […]

Read the rest of this great post here

mutineermike wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
We applaud the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for publicly acknowledging what most educated observers have been saying for months: Wall Street speculators are reaping unconscionable profits by exploiting and manipulating the unregulated energy trading markets.
Commodity traders have pushed oil prices far higher than what can be explained by basic supply and demand. Under mounting pressure from Congress, the trading commission announced this week that it has been investigating oil trading practices for the past six months.
Forgive us, however, if we remain a bit cynical. We can’t get too excited about the trading commission doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, which is to investigate irregularities in the futures market. Its announcement is similar to the local Fire Department putting out a statement that it is now going to start responding to fires.
It’s not difficult to trace the root of today’s crisis. It was the deregulation of the energy […]

Read the rest of this great post here

ETF Trends - Keeping a grip on exchange traded funds (ETFs) wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
The CRB Commodity Yearbook 2008 Hardcover: 384 pages Wiley; (June 10, 2008) ISBN-10: 0470230215 ISBN-13: 978-0470230213 Rating – 5 stars This book is the single most comprehensive source of commodity and futures market information available. Since 1939 traders, hedgers, portfolio managers, and speculators have relied on The CRB Commodity Yearbook to help them navigate the vagaries of the commodity markets. The Yearbook’s depth renders it indispensable. It helps identify changing trends in su

Read the rest of this great post here

ETF Trends - Keeping a grip on exchange traded funds (ETFs) wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
FREE Ultimate Commodities Trading Systems - CLICK HERE.

Read the rest of this great post here

ETF Trends - Keeping a grip on exchange traded funds (ETFs) wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
Until that day, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask instead what your country has been doing to you and is likely to keep doing to you for as long as it can buy with fiat money the votes of a majority.

By Gary North
LewRockwell.com
It is one of the oddest facts in American history that the two most important American political speeches in the twentieth century were delivered about 70 hours apart.
The most prophetic Presidential speech in American history ever delivered by a sitting President was made by a man who possessed, at least until the arrival of George W. Bush, the reputation for being the least competent verbal communicator in modern Presidential history. The other speech laid the rhetorical foundations for a foreign policy that has culminated in the worst military disaster in American history.
The first speech is Eisenhower’s Farewell Address. We call it […]

Read the rest of this great post here

freemarketman wrote an interesting post today on
Here’s a quick excerpt
Those who have been too afraid to buy simply do not understand the underlying dynamics and have instead decided that the market is irrational.

By Peter Schiff,
Euro Pacific Capital
As the price of gold has taken some lumps since it crashed into the symbolically significant $1,000 per ounce mark back in March, those on Wall Street who had consistently underplayed its potential on its way up are now assuring its continued retreat. According to these gold market spectators, prices have risen solely as a result of financial panic, and now that the fear has apparently subsided, gold’s gains will evaporate as well.
I have been buying gold and gold stocks for myself and my clients since 1999 and not once did I buy out of fear. In fact, from my perspective the only fear I’ve observed in the gold market is from those who have been too afraid to buy.
While fear may from […]

Read the rest of this great post here