Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson concedes his department has struggled to keep pace with a ‘‘tumultuous’’ decade for the Australian economy. Addressing an economists’ lunch in Sydney, Dr Parkinson said the difficulty Treasury and other economic forecasters had had was predicting the path of global commodity prices, the exchange rate and capital gains.
‘‘While our forecasts for the real economy have held up reasonably well, the same can’t be said of our price forecasts,’’ he told Australian Business Economists. Dr Parkinson said Treasury’s forecasts for employment and wages had been relatively accurate, which meant that for income tax, the largest source of government revenue, they had changed little since last year’s budget……………………………..Full Article: Source

Silver prices have slumped to their lowest level since September 2010 and gold prices are down 18% year-to-date leading many market observers to declare that the super-rally in commodities is over.
Jim Rogers, the legendary investor and Chairman of Rogers Holdings, says the commodities bull market continues. He calls the latest slump in prices a correction. “I still don’t see massive new supply coming into the market which will keep prices down,” he said……………………………….Full Article: Source

Hedge-fund managers are making the biggest ever bet against gold as billionaire George Soros sold holdings last quarter and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicted more declines after the longest slump in four years.
The funds and other large speculators held 74,432 so-called short contracts on May 14, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. That’s the highest since the data begins in June 2006 and compares with 67,374 a week earlier. The net- long position dropped 20% to 39,216 futures and options, the lowest since July 2007. Net-bullish wagers across 18 U.S.- traded raw materials rose 1.1% to 588,482, led by gains in hogs, corn and cotton………………………………..Full Article: Source

The kind of leverage that billionaire investor George Soros has on the psyche of investors is beyond comparison. When he buys gold investors too, when he sells gold investors too. Actions of George Soros heralds the fortunes of gold; in other words, gold’s future is wedded to Soros’ investment decisions. At least that is how it is in the present conditions.
Soros Fund Management LLC cut short its holdings in the world’s largest investment fund, the SPDR Gold Trust by 12% to 530,900 shares as of March 31. This when compared to higher amounts in investment in the fund three months earlier………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A year ago, the technical picture suggested that the market was coming to a major change that could have been several hundred dollars up or down. My brain said it could be down, but my heart said up and I stuck with my heart.
Even after this takedown, I still don’t believe that the secular bull market that’s been ongoing for 12 years has come to an end. I still believe we’ll have a two in front of the gold price before it ends. We’re going to have to get to $2,000/ounce ($2,000/oz) before there’s any decision on my part about the end of the bull run………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Billionaire investor George Soros joined Northern Trust Corp. and Blackrock Inc. in cutting holdings of exchange-traded products backed by gold before a bear market in prices last month, while John Paulson maintained a stake that lost about $165 million in the first quarter.
Soros Fund Management LLC lowered its investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest such fund, by 12 percent to 530,900 shares as of March 31, compared with three months earlier, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed……………………………………Full Article: Source

Jim Rogers recently said in an interview to Morningstar, that he is not disturbed by the recent tumble in gold prices. “Gold had gone up 12 years in a row, without a down year, which is extremely unusual in any asset. Equally important, gold has only had one 30% correction in 12 years.
Again, that is extremely unusual. Most things correct 30-40% every year or two. So the action in gold has been very unique and gold needed a correction. The main thing that caused it, as far as I am concerned, was that the market was ready. It needed it and it is good for gold to have a proper correction,” said Rogers. We agree. At the same time we would like to point out that this has no implications on the short term………………………………………Full Article: Source

Stanley Druckenmiller, the billionaire hedge-fund manager who returned an average of 30 percent a year from 1986 through 2010, said the long rally by commodities is over as China switches to consumption-led growth rather than investing in infrastructure.
“We think a decade of commodity demand is over,” he said today at the Ira Sohn Investment Conference in New York. “It’s a poisonous cocktail when you look at commodities going forward.” Druckenmiller, who said in August 2010 that he was returning cash to his clients and would focus on his own investments, is betting against the Australian dollar, which he said will “come down and come down hard.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Don’t think of the commodities swoon as just a correction after years of outsized gains. The party’s over and the decline is just starting, according to Stanley Druckenmiller. In his Sohn Investment Conference presentation, Druckenmiller said the 2002-2011 gains for commodities were an anomaly and that the declines of the past couple of years are the norm.
Why? China, he said, which embarked on an unprecedented investment program that caused the spike in commodity prices; in one slide, Druckenmiller suggested that 50% of all global demand from 2002 to 2011 came from china………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The best investment idea at Ira Sohn 2013 could be all about shorting everything that’s associated with the voracious Chinese demand for commodities, a symptom of policies that attempted to quell–but really just put on hold–the effects of the financial crisis.
Stanley Druckenmiller, former managing director of Soros Fund Management, said commodity producers were fooled in 2008, when the Chinese government injected 4 trillion yuan (at the time, $586 billion) in stimulus into the Chinese economy. That created a false demand for goods and for the raw materials to make them………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Jim Rogers gave us the scoop on his latest interests in agriculture. Rogers pointed to several factors he believes will push agricultural commodities prices much higher in the years ahead.
One factor is demographics. Farmers across the world are aging and it’s not a sector attracting a lot of young career-hunters. Another key reason for higher prices: demand is outpacing supply………………………………………..Full Article: Source

OPEC has appointed a Saudi Arabian candidate as its head of research over an Iranian, OPEC delegates told Reuters on Tuesday following a meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Vienna.
Saudi Aramco’s Omar Abdulhamid was appointed as the head of research, the second most senior post at OPEC after the secretary general, replacing Kuwait’s Hasan Qabazard. The other candidate was Iran’s Hojatollah Ghanimifard. Delegates said that Abdulhamid was personally recommended by OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri………………………………………..Full Article: Source

John Paulson’s Gold Fund lost 27% in April, according to a report on Bloomberg Tuesday, citing someone familiar with the matter. That’s a chunk of change, and explains why the SPDR Gold fund GLD keeps heading south, says Tyler Durden over at ZeroHedge.
Durden says there may be a gold lining amid signs of major selling from Paulson and others. ”The good news is that once levered players such as Paulson are finally blown out, there is hope that only far more rational, ‘non-weak handed’ players remain at the table,” he says………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The commodities question is a vexing one. To some extent, the fall in commodity prices reflects the large increase in the supply in recent years. We have also seen negative inflation surprises in the United States, China, India and Australia.
So, at its heart what the commodity prices are telling you is that the global economy is struggling for traction. And with effectively unlimited QE in three of the four major economies, we are still struggling to generate a genuine global recovery………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Hedge funds increased bets on a gold rally by the most in three weeks as central banks signaled no end to economic stimulus, driving prices higher just as analysts and traders turned the most bearish in three years.
The funds and other large speculators raised their net-long position by 19 percent to 54,762 futures and options as of April 30, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Holdings of so-called short contracts retreated 9.2 percent, the most since March 19. Net-bullish wagers across 18 U.S.-traded raw materials jumped 28 percent to 550,182, the biggest increase in seven weeks, led by gains in soybeans, cocoa and crude oil………………………………………..Full Article: Source

OPEC is again attempting to break the deadlock over selecting its next secretary general, after rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran last year prevented a new candidate being named to its top administrative post.
A panel of officials is meeting this weekend at the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to discuss criteria for the secretary general post, OPEC delegates said. Abdullah al-Badri’s one-year term in the job ends in December………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The move lower is base metals portends poorly for the U.S. and global economies, commodities trader Dennis Gartman said Wednesday on CNBC. “Dr. Copper Is Sick,” he said, adding that prices for aluminum and zinc were also heading lower. “And they don’t argue for good economic growth.”
On “Fast Money,” Gartman said that while the growing copper inventories in Shanghai, London and the Comex were nothing new, the move in other commodities were cause for concern………………………………………..Full Article: Source

With the yellow metal down about 14% this year, wouldn’t it be great to get the scoop from famed investor Jim Rogers on gold prices in 2013- specifically, why they’re down, and if investors should still bet on a long-term gold bull market?
We had a chance to ask Rogers those very questions last weekend. Sunday evening, Money Morning Executive Editor William Patalon III spoke on the phone with Rogers - who was at his home in Singapore - in a wide-ranging discussion about gold, U.S. stocks, commodities and global central banks’ “race to the bottom” - or, as Rogers calls it, “race to insanity.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Jim Rogers, who predicted a commodity rally in 1999, said he’s ready to buy gold when it hits bottom, but with prices still climbing after 9 days he may have missed it. Jim Rogers, who predicted a commodity rally in 1999, said he may buy gold if a bear market deepens and prices fall to $1,300 an ounce or below.
Bullion for immediate delivery tumbled to $1,321.95 on April 16, the lowest since January 2011, stoking a frenzy among coin and jewelry buyers from the U.S. to India and Australia. Rogers, the chairman of Singapore-based Rogers Holdings, hasn’t bought any bullion after the slump, he said in an interview………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Citigroup Inc has hired two former UBS AG base metals executives to its growing metals trading desk as part of the U.S. bank’s expansion of its commodities business, the bank said on Thursday.
Rick McIntire will join as global head of base metals sales and Dylan Morgan has been appointed co-head of base metal trading alongside Tom Parkin. Both were previously at UBS………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The New York-based hedge fund manager has long stuck by his thesis that gold will someday be a powerful hedge against inflation, and it was no different on the investor call he held, two people who listened to the call said.
John Reade, a partner at Paulson & Co, said that the firm, which oversees about $18 billion, is not veering off its course even as he cautioned that there could be more price fluctuations in the short term………………………………………..Full Article: Source

If you are invested in the lofty stock markets of the United States or Japan, legendary investor Jim Rogers has a message for you …Euphoric gains always lead to hangover pains – it’s just a matter of when.
“This is artificial, as I’ve [repeatedly] said,” Rogers told Money Morning during an exclusive interview Sunday night. “This is the first time in recorded history where nearly all the central banks in all countries are pumping out lots of money, debasing their currencies, printing money. I’ve never seen this in history, and now we’ve got everybody – or nearly everybody – doing it.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Crude can move either side of $100 a barrel with neither direction currently dominating, aside from a longer term bias for gradual gains, said the head of Vitol Group, the world’s largest privately held oil trader.
Brent crude futures sank below $100 on April 16 for the first time since July and have oscillated either side of that level in the days since, trading at $100.53 at 12:58 p.m. London time today on the ICE Futures Europe exchange………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Mohammad Ali Khatibi, who is also the National Iranian Oil Company’s Director for International Affairs told the oil ministry’s website that in a report earlier this year, OPEC’s Secretariat has predicted oil supply would surpass demand.
Khatibi added that following growth in oil production in Non-OPEC countries and rising oil withdrawal from non-conventional reserves including shale oil, it is predicted world oil supply to go beyond demand. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said plunging gold prices this week aren’t necessarily a clear signal about the prospects for the global economy, saying base metals tend to be a better guide.
“You had a curious situation this week where there was an adjustment at a time when there was some surprise in economic data, so I would say that that’s more reflecting the specific market dynamics within that market,” Carney said at a press conference today in Ottawa…………………………………Full Article: Source

Iran wants oil prices to stay above $100 a barrel, its oil minister said on Sunday after crude touched nine-month lows near $101 on Friday and ahead of OPEC’s next meeting on May 31. “An oil price below $100 is not reasonable for anyone,” Rostam Qasemi said.
Fellow OPEC member Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said last month that around $100 a barrel was a “reasonable” price for consumers and producers alike………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Billionaire John Paulson lost more than $300 million of his personal wealth on his gold bet, as the precious metal fell to its lowest price in almost two years.
Paulson has roughly $9.5 billion invested across his hedge funds, of which about 85% is invested in gold share classes.Gold dropped 4.1% on Saturday, shaving about $328 million from his net worth on this bet alone………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The chief executive of the London Metal Exchange said Wednesday financial regulation, particularly in Europe, poses a threat to a free market for commodities and to Europe’s market share in the sector. He also said quantitative easing programs from central banks is also disrupting commodity markets.
Giving the keynote speech at the Cesco Week dinner, Martin Abbott spoke on the topic of price formation, free markets and the threats to that freedom………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Play - Download this article

|

Play - Download Full Briefing

|

Subscribe to the Podcast Feed

Oil at $100 a barrel is a “reasonable” price that won’t choke global economic growth, Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi said. “Prices will stay at these current levels in the foreseeable future,” he said today in a speech in Hong Kong, according to the text reported by the official Saudi Press Agency. “Current price levels will not affect economic growth in Asia,” he said.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, increased oil production and sales in January, according to figures from the Joint Organizations Data Initiative yesterday. The kingdom produced 9.25 million barrels a day in February, estimates from the International Energy Agency show………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Even as central banks are hoarding more gold than ever, investment gurus are turning bearish on the metal as the recent decline in the gold price and better-than-expected recovery in the US has led many to predict a turn in the gold cycle.
While gold hit a record high in 2011 due to uncertainty over US growth prospects and rising debt problems in Europe, investors today are seen cutting their holdings in gold exchange traded funds and equities as gold prices have declined 5 percent this year to trade below $1,600 since much of their fears have now subsided…………………………………….Full Article: Source

Many major oil producers and OPEC leaders may not have been enamored by Hugo Chavez’s charm, but his presence served a useful purpose: under his leadership, Venezuela mismanaged its matchless oil reserves and crude production fell.
With him gone, major producers now face yet another competitor in an already crowded market. Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves of 296.5 billion barrels, but under Chavez, production had declined from a peak of 3.5 million barrels in 2000 per day to around 2.4 million bpd at the end of 2012, and Venezuela had slid from one of OPEC’s major producers, to its sixth largest, according to OPEC data………………………………………..Full Article: Source

President Hugo Chavez relished using Venezuela’s oil wealth to project power internationally, nudging OPEC to raise oil prices when he could, showering allies like Cuba and Nicaragua with subsidized oil shipments, and mocking the United States while selling it his crude.
But Chavez’s death Tuesday has had surprisingly little impact on global oil markets, highlighting how Venezuela’s dwindling crude production and exports have undercut its global power in recent years………………………………………..Full Article: Source

So Hugo Chávez is dead. Now what? It’s still early days. But one thing to keep an eye on is what Big Oil’s reactions could be.
Remember, Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves in the world. The country has proven oil reserves of 297.6bn barrels at the end of 2011, compared to Saudi Arabia’s 265.4bn barrels, according to data from Opec………………………………………..Full Article: Source

It seems the Fed has failed to spark a spike in commodities. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke strongly reiterated the value of qualitative easing in his semi-annual testimony before Congress last week. He made it clear that QE, the Fed’s low interest rate policy, could continue well into the future.
What makes this significant is that there has been some dissension within the Fed, and some seem to believe that the policy should end early. So if QE is the Fed’s policy, why has the U.S. dollar been so strong of late, and why has gold failed to hold above $1,600?……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Commodities billionaire Richard Elman highlighted the benefit of financial restraint at a time when “funding is pulling out of the sector” as the Noble Group he founded unveil a rise in earnings despite a slump in agriculture.
Mr Elman, worth $1.8bn according to Forbes, blamed the “uncertainty” caused by elections and government changes in the likes of China and the US, as well as “echoes of the financial crisis” for causing “huge volumes of investment money to drain out of the commodity space” last year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Wall Street legend offers investing insights and economic, political and social analyis, drawing on lessons and observations from his lifetime in the markets. So, Jim Rogers, tell us what you really think. …
No problem there: Candor is the trademark of this former hedge fund titan, world traveler and inveterate memoirist and investor. Rogers is a showman. And his latest book, Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets, exuberantly excoriates the “overconfident incompetents” he believes dominate the U.S. government and Wall Street………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Norway’s central bank governor warned that the country, one of the richest in the world, needs to prepare more for its post-oil future.
Øystein Olsen, head of Norges Bank, used his annual speech to underline that the two factors affecting the country’s growth potential – hours worked and productivity growth – were both falling………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Billionaire investors George Soros and Louis Moore Bacon cut their stakes in exchange-traded products backed by gold last quarter as futures dropped the most in more than eight years. John Paulson maintained his holding.
Soros Fund Management LLC reduced its investment in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest fund backed by the metal, 55 percent to 600,000 shares as of Dec. 31 from three months earlier, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Jim Rogers does not want you to get the wrong idea. He thinks Ben Bernanke is doing a really, really, really bad job as Federal Reserve Chairman. In his most recent book, Street Smarts, Rogers says that if you are to look back at Bernanke’s predictions over the past few years, you can only come to one conclusion: The Fed Chairman is always wrong. Here’s the money, no pun intended, quote:
“He knows little about economics or finance, he has no idea how markets work, and the only thing he truly understands about currency is how to print it.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Jim Rogers has never been shy about vocalizing his love of precious metals. Though he has some cautionary sentiment about short-term gold prices given their 12-year bull run, the legendary investor still remains optimistic about the long-term future of both silver and gold.
Rogers feels that investors should be loading up on silver and gold coins right now as he notes that they have surged in popularity and that mints have been consistently selling out of silver coins because investors are worried about the future………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Majid al-Moneef withdrew his candidacy for the post of OPEC secretary-general after he was promoted within Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Economic Council, a Persian Gulf official with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Al-Moneef, who formerly served as Saudi Arabia’s governor to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and as a senior economic adviser to Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, had been vying for the producer group’s top administrative position against candidates from Iran and Iraq. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Jim Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1970s, is exploring the world for investments in water technology. “There will be wars east of the Red Sea over oil and wars west of the Red Sea over water,” Rogers, 70, said in an interview yesterday before giving a speech to the CFA Society of Atlanta.
Rogers, who is chairman of Rogers Holdings in Singapore where he lives with his wife and two young daughters, said he isn’t interested in owning lakes, reservoirs or other sources of water that could be confiscated by governments in times of turmoil. He said he’s looking for technologies that can help free countries from dependency on outside water sources. One stock he holds is Singapore-based HyFlux Ltd, which makes and installs water purification, treatment and recycling systems………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Investment guru and prominent commodities bull Jim Rogers has pointed to tight supply and central banks’ money-printing spree as reasons for taking on physical assets. With exchange traded funds, investors can play this commodities outlook.
Specifically, there are several exchange traded products based on indices designed by Rogers. He developed the commodity benchmarks to track expected global consumption based on his research and personal experiences traveling the world……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Patricia Mohr, Scotiabank’s commodity market specialist, made the case for higher or resilient prices for commodities, including copper, potash and uranium, in the near and longer term.
Mohr noted food prices are high and “this is going to incent farmers to apply a lot of potash next spring, something we expect is going to happen.”…………………………………….Full Article: Source

John Roncevich, the former head of Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC)’s commodities business, has left the lender and formed a venture to advise banks on ways they can sidestep some of the new regulations affecting the industry.
Roncevich departed in November after ceding oversight of the business in July, Elise Wilkinson, a bank spokeswoman, said via e-mail today. Roncevich joined Wells Fargo through its 2008 purchase of Wachovia Corp. and ran the sales and trading of physical commodities and derivatives. Pekka Kauranen now heads commodities trading at the San Francisco-based firm………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Deutsche Bank has appointed Louise Kitchen and Richard Jefferson as co-heads of its global commodities business, a source close to the bank said on Wednesday. Both are internal appointments and are based in London. Kitchen had been global head of commodity structuring while Jefferson was head of commodity sales.
They will take over immediately from David Silbert, who is leaving the post, said the source, who declined to be identified………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Noted investor and author Jim Rogers says index-based commodity ETFs will be an easy-to-use strategy for investors to profit from supply shortages in natural resources combined with easy monetary policies from central banks around the world. Rogers pointed out that world governments have gotten to the habit of printing money in the wake of the financial crisis.
Rogers noted that the new Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, won his election on promises to increase quantitative easing to jumpstart the stagnating economy. Consequently, the Japanese yen has been depreciating and Japanese equities have been rallying on the optimistic outlook………………………………………..Full Article: Source

This will be a make-or-break year for this commodity, as markets flirt with pre-recession highs and investors slowly move into “risk on” purchasing. Faber’s bullishness on the metal will certainly be tested in the coming months.
Marc Faber, author of the famed “Gloom, Boom & Doom Report,” is a respected name in the investing world. If ever there was a perma-bear, it would be Faber. He tends to focus on areas of the world that he sees problems in and allow that information to influence his investing decisions. But no matter what segment Faber has an eye on, his focus always circles back to one asset: gold. The precious metal has long been an important part of his holdings, and he has not been shy about vocalizing his love for the commodity………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) Maria Van der Hoeven said Monday she doesn’t see a further decline in global crude production in 2013.
Saudi Arabia cut its oil production by close to 5 percent to 9.025 million barrels a day in December in response to lower demand chiefly from Asian customers, and comes amid expectations for lower demand for crude oil from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries this year. Asked by Dow Jones Newswires in an interview if the market is likely to see further production cuts this year, Van der Hoeven said: “I don’t think so.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Saudi Arabia appointed two of its former OPEC officials as oil experts to a council that advises the king on energy and economic matters, including Majid al- Moneef, a contender for the post of OPEC Secretary General.
Al-Moneef was reappointed to the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, which is part of King Abdullah’s Shoura Council, for another four years, his third term, according to a royal decree issued today and carried by Saudi Press Agency………………………………………..Full Article: Source