Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
BHP Billiton said it expects commodity markets to cool further and that investors have lost confidence in the longer-term health of the global economy, in the most cautious outlook taken by the mining giant.
The world’s biggest miner on Wednesday also backed away from a plan announced by Chief Executive Marius Kloppers in 2011 to spend $80 billion over five years to expand its iron ore, coal, energy and base metals divisions, banking on continuing high demand from its main market, China………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
The commodities super-cycle was expected to last at least two decades. But has it already run its course? Commodity bulls argue that prices have historically tended to rise and fall in 20-year waves. After a long period of stagnation in the 1980s and 1990s, prices appeared to have started a powerful new cycle in 1999 driven by emerging market demand.
Yet just halfway into the predicted super-cycle, the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index is down nearly 25 per cent in just over a year, and off 5 per cent already in 2012. That has put the bulls on the defensive………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
Commodities have taken a miserable tumble as a combination of forces act in synchrony and weigh down on global prices. On the one hand you have an unresolved Greek debt crisis to which there seems no end.
President Karolos Papoulias has only today announced that Greece will yet again return to elections. It gives rise to the very serious possibility that Greece will indeed exit from the Euro-zone, a scenario few would have envisaged no less than a month ago………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
With financial markets in a tail-spin again and many commodity prices reaching 1-2 year lows, the question is whether or not this is a buying opportunity or not, in such markets as gold, crude oil and the agricultural markets such as sugar, cocoa, cotton, coffee, corn, wheat and soybeans.
While the $2 billion JP Morgan misfortune, combined with the recent European elections has had the market in sort of a panic, ideal world weather conditions for cocoa, sugar, corn and soybean planting and world wheat crops, have definitely had an effect in lower commodity prices………………………………………..Full Article: Source
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The biggest threat to oil prices isn’t excess supply, uneven demand or slowing global growth. It’s the rise of the U.S. dollar – or more precisely, the fall of the euro. You see, oil and other commodities are priced in U.S. dollars, so as the dollar strengthens, their value declines. Conversely, as the dollar loses value, the prices of commodities increase to reflect that.
The dollar has been a very weak currency over the past decade, which has helped fuel the bull run in commodities. And for a long time, it looked as though the dollar would only get weaker………………………………………..Full Article: Source
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Nickel prices have suffered from the same downward drift that afflicted the majority of the complex over the past month. At near $17,000/t, nickel is now at its lowest level this year.
While trading well into the cost curve (close to the 80th percentile), from a fundamental perspective this is justified by the current state of oversupply. The INSG reported a 30Kt surplus in Jan-Feb alone………………………………………..Full Article: Source
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The recent sell-off in gold is unlikely to continue in the longer term, with the precious metal set to hit $1,900 an ounce towards the end of the year, according to Walter De Wet, head of commodities at Standard Bank.
“If the dollar is strong and the euro weak, gold trades lower, but ultimately it de-links especially when we get more money printing ,” De Wet told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Europe.” “Longer term we still think it’s going to go up.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
Last year at this time, gold was everyone’s favorite commodity, as the precious metal had spiked to its historical high of approximately $1,900/oz. But after crashing back to earth, this asset has struggled thus far on the year amid economic uncertainty and weighing pressures from the eurozone.
Gold prices have fallen more than 10% since February, as investors seem to have little confidence in the metal’s ability to properly act as a safe haven holding. But with this major decline in prices comes a strong buying opportunity for gold, as its value has not been this low for several months……………………………………….Full Article: Source
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The uber-critical $1,527 line of gold’s price defense came into play overnight as we had recently pondered here, and this time around, despite all the denials of the fact and protestations to the contrary, the gold market entered the cave of the bear.
Granted that with RSI levels near 20 and with bullish Daily Sentiment indicators perhaps only in the single digits an overdue counter-trend rally might yet delude the bulls, but this is where the market highway junction that really matters is to be found………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
Investment guru Jim Rogers believes that gold could fall upto 50% from its top. Jim Rogers was the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with George Soros and is also the creator of the widely tracked Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI).
Rogers states that there has been increased talk in India that gold imports should be curtailed while some Europeans have also been asking for selling their gold. If India decides to limit its gold imports or the Europeans decided to sell their gold, prices could tumble by 40%-50% from its top………………………………………..Full Article: Source
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Gold declined by 0.8% to $1543.95/oz, the lowest level since July 2011 as the dollar strengthened against the Euro, said Barclays Capital in a commodities research note.
According to Barclays, precious metals prices came off with the exception of palladium as the dollar strengthened against the Euro. Outside a slew of GDP data releases from Europe, Greece remained the focus and announced that new elections will be held within a month as political leaders had failed to form a unity government………………………………………..Full Article: Source
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In the day GoldCore reports George Soros’ nearly quadrupled his holdings of the SPDR Gold Trust in his latest SEC filing, Yahoo posts a front page article titled, Gold Tumbles Into Bear Market on Concern Greece May Leave Euro.
As the latest example of media working with Washington to bamboozle the public, the reader of the Yahoo piece won’t find an amplification of its salacious headline. On the other hand, gold specialist firm GoldCore reports on the same day that global insider George Soros told the SEC he raised his stake in GLD, dramatically………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
Gold exchange traded funds reversed early losses Wednesday following a three-day down streak. The precious metal ETFs are testing the recent low from December 2011, a key technical level.
SPDR Gold Shares has slipped 4% over the past week and has been trending lower for about three months. Gold is down about 20% from the recent high, which some analysts define as a bear market, reports Brendan Conway at Barron’s………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
Dutch bank ABN AMRO is preparing to launch a $300 million global fund to back mining exploration and give its clients exposure to the sector, followed by a launch of an infrastructure fund to capitalize on logistical shortfalls in energy transportation.
The mining fund is expected to launch imminently, and will back the exploration of mining sites, said Harris Antoniou, the bank’s head of Energy, Commodities and Transportation………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
A new owner for the London Metal Exchange could be announced soon, and Hong Kong’s stocks-focused bourse, one of the three remaining bidders, sees it as the quick entry it is seeking into the commodities business.
For the LME, picking Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. would give the 135-year-old member-owned exchange better access to China and its hunger for resources………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
NYSE Euronext (NYX) was removed from the list of buyers of the London Metal Exchange, the largest metals market. NYSE Euronext, the biggest U.S. exchange owner, was notified of the decision, James Dunseath, an exchange spokesman in London, said.
“We put in a proposal that we thought offered a fair value. We wish the LME well.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source
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Standard Chartered Bank Plc’s commodities trading unit may post a double-digit growth in 2012, as it boosts its share in the Asian market while the global financial crisis forces rivals to pare down operations in the region, a senior executive said.
Airlines, power companies and oil refineries are all expanding in Asia to feed its rapid economic growth, giving Asia-focused banks like StanChart an advantage over peers hit by their bigger exposure to the slowdown in the West………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
Emerging market currencies moved sharply intraday, moving in sync with investors’ worries about Greece and Europe.
During the day, the dollar surged to new highs against the Mexican peso, nearly wiping out the losses of this year. But in New York trading hours, these emerging currencies posted a modest recovery, propped somewhat by clarity on funding to Greece’s banks and the prospect of more easing by the U.S. Federal Reserve………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
People everywhere are fed up with the status quo of the economy. With the passion our official institutions show for this tepid “recovery,” many are concluding that progress will come not from the current system, which is after all what got us here in the first place, but from their own ingenuity and inventiveness.
In pockets around the world, folks are declaring economic independence by starting small, local, but potentially revolutionary alternative currencies that could change not only how we buy goods and services — but how we relate to one other in society………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
European carbon prices should be at least twice their current value of just over 6 euros ($7.66) a tonne in order spur investment in cleaner technology, EU Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Wednesday.
Europe’s recession and fiscal crisis has crippled prices in the European Union’s Emissions Trading System, meaning carbon prices are providing little incentive for utilities and other heavy polluters to move to greener production of electricity, steel or cement………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
A deputy minister in Britain’s Foreign Office said Wednesday he expects carbon trading markets between South Korea and the European Union to be linked within the next decade, hailing Seoul’s recent approval of an emissions trading scheme.
Joining global efforts to curb the pace of climate change, South Korea’s National Assembly passed a long-delayed bill early this month to begin buying and selling domestic credits on carbon dioxide emissions from 2015………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
EU nations should pledge that funds from paying for airline emissions will help poor countries deal with global warming, the bloc’s climate chief said on Tuesday, after finance ministers stopped short of a firm commitment.
Crisis in Greece and the euro-zone topped the agenda at the ministers’ talks in Brussels, but they also agreed to text on climate funding, which only promised hard cash until the end of the year………………………………………..Full Article: Source
Posted on 17 May 2012 by VRS | Email |Print
The chance of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius this century is getting slimmer and slimmer, the head of the International Energy Agency warned on Wednesday.
“What I see now with existing investments for plants under construction…we are seeing the door for a 2 degree Celsius target about to be closed and closed forever,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist, told a Reuters’ Global Energy & Environment Summit………………………………………..Full Article: Source
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