commodities

The Dow Transportation Index was down almost 4 percent today and if there is any silver lining in the current market turmoil is that Trannies usually lead crude down, which will drop gas prices. The chart below shows the 12.2 percent swan…

Almost everything that happened last week is irrelevant given what looks like a U.S. debt deal. What we’re watching is how the relief rally holds and whether the Friday’s poor GDP data was a game changer. Looking under the surface of the…

History has a message for us: No fiat currency has lasted forever. Eventually, they all fail. Morgan Stanley reported in 2009 that there’s “no historical precedent” for an economy that exceeds a 250% debt-to-GDP ratio without experiencing…

It turns out that China is not willing to pay whatever it has to for energy and metal resources. Several resource deals have faltered in recent months, indicating an increasingly choosy Chinese perspective on energy and metal acquisitions.…

The S&P has gone from 2 standard deviations below the 20-day moving average on the 16th June to 2 standard deviations above it now, something it did prior to the 87 crash when it rallied 6.4% in the week prior to the crash. It has been…

Here’s an interesting note from UBS’ Andy Lees on the background story to the oil market. You may have heard that US President Obama decided to release some of the oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). This move was bearish for…

In this column, Marc Chandler argues that US monetary policy can be a powerful tool, but it has limitations. Some commodity prices have risen and some have fallen since the Federal Reserve signaled QEII. The anticipation of QEII did weigh…

If you have fewer players operating wells, then the supply should be lower. It sounds to me like the rush to buy up natural gas acreage has strained balance sheets in a way that will force up prices down the line.

On balance it would then seem that the consensus remains weighed towards no QE3 either because it is not needed or because it does not work in the first place. I think it is very simple in the end though. If sideways movement gives way to a…

I am more cautious than optimistic on risk assets and the global economy. From where I sit global growth prospects are not improving; they are weakening.