A troika of central bank gatherings this week is garnering keen anticipation from the raw commodity and currency futures markets. The Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting kicks off the central bank confabs by getting underway Tuesday morning and concluding Wednesday afternoon.
The European Central Bank and Bank of England central bank meetings conclude on Thursday, including a key press conference held by ECB chief Draghi following the ECB meeting………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Brent oil ended down for the first time in five sessions on Monday as worries that expected stimulus from the United States and Europe may fail to lift their economies overshadowed signs of lower OPEC production.
Supply from the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) fell by 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July to 31.18 million bpd, a Reuters survey showed, as Western sanctions further cut supply from Iran and due to reduced shipments from Angola, Saudi Arabia and Libya………………………………………..Full Article: Source

OPEC oil output fell further from its highest in four years in July as U.S. and European sanctions cut supply from Iran to the lowest in more than two decades, a Reuters survey showed on Monday.
Supply from the 12-member Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has averaged 31.18 million barrels per day in July, down from 31.63 million bpd in June, the survey of sources at oil companies, OPEC officials and analysts found………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Long term investment in future contracts for oil has given only return of 9.8%, even though the price of oil rose 202.8% in that period. Long term investors in futures contracts should roll over expiring contracts, and because of the contango effect, the return was only 9.8% or 0.32% annually, without taking in account trade commissions.
In order to include the oil ETF, United States Oil (USO), and the oil ETN, iPath S&P GSCI Crude Oil (OIL), which were launched in 2006, an identical study was performed on a much shorter period, from September 01, 2006 to July 25, 2012………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The only three analysts to correctly predict gold’s biggest quarterly slump in four years are now split, reflecting investors’ diverging views on the probability of central banks doing more to shore up growth. Justin Smirk of Westpac Banking Corp., the most accurate of 20 analysts tracked by Bloomberg in the second quarter, says prices will keep dropping.
Eugen Weinberg of Commerzbank AG and Nick Trevethan at ANZ Banking Group Ltd. predict a record within a year. Hedge funds and other speculators are the least bullish since 2008, even with investor holdings of physical bullion in exchange-traded products close to an all-time high, government data and figures compiled by Bloomberg show………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Speculative traders’ bets on gold and silver fell to the lowest level since December 2008 last week, according to Friday’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. Managed money funds and hedge funds’ net long gold positions fell 23% for the week ending July 24.
QE-3, hooey? No. This reading pre-dates European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi’s July 26th pledge. “Within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough,” Draghi was quoted as saying. The comments helped spur a 3.6% two-day rally in the S&P 500 and gold futures’ strongest week in a month………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Wholesale quoted prices for gold bullion fell below $1,620 an ounce during Monday morning’s London session – slightly below last week’s close – while stocks gained and US Treasuries fell, with markets focused on key monetary policy decisions due later in the week.
Silver bullion hovered around $27.70 an ounce – in line with Friday’s close – while other commodities were also broadly flat. German 2-Year government bond yields hit a new record low this morning, falling further below zero to -0.096% ahead of an auction of Italian 10-Year debt………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Comex December gold futures are pressing lower in early New York trading action Monday. The failure to punch above Friday’s high begs the question—are the recent gains a bull trap?
Short-term traders may want to use caution near term as this question is resolved. Action since late May on the daily chart has unfolded in a classic “triangle” pattern, seen on Figure 1 below. A triangle is comprised of four points, which have developed, seen at 1, 2, 3 and 4 on the chart. When a market is in a downtrend (which it was) point 1 is at the bottom of the triangle. The four points allow traders to draw an upper and lower trendline………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Both platinum and gold are useful metals. Gold’s use is ultimately social, being a thing of beauty, symbol of power, store of value and a means of exchange, while platinum is primarily an industrial metal. This isn’t helping platinum versus the gold price one bit right now.
Platinum, from platina, meaning “little silver” in Modern Latin via Spanish, was only identified as a precious metal in the mid-18th century. So it lacks gold’s long history of human use………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Australia’s fourth largest bank, Australia & New Zealand Bank trimmed its 2012 copper price forecast by 9% to $8,156 per tons or $3.70/lb on Monday.
Analysts with the bank stated that, “tightness in the copper market is expected to ease and our projected deficit for 2012 has been trimmed from 170,000 ton to 63,000 tons as demand growth, particularly in China, slows.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Base metals prospects remain clouded by the Eurozone crisis, US recovery concerns, China slowdown, however, pro-growth policies in emerging nations could propel economic growth and improve prospects for the base metals pack, according to Natixis.
Aluminium market is pressured by over supply from China although western producers have reduced output. But Indonesia curbs on bauxite exports may support aluminium prices. Natixis expects aluminium price to average $2000/ton in 2012, followed by a modest increase to $2,250/ton in 2013, Natixis quarterly report said………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Only a quarter of Australia’s mining companies are looking to invest in major projects this year, further fuelling concern the mining investment boom is over.
A report released on Tuesday says the mining industry appears to be in survival mode, with just 25 per cent of Australian companies planning to invest in major capital expenditure projects in the year ahead, compared to 52 per cent last year………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold ETF is the unique product that offers retail investors to invest in gold in dematerialized form through their normal demat accounts. With the simplified features and many other benefits, this asset class proves to be the best product for the retail investors.
Across the world, gold is seen largely as an investment product where the investors, both retail and non-retail, are investing in it for pure economic reasons. In contrast, gold is a majorly consumer product in India………………………………………..Full Article: Source

All it took was a roughly 2% rally last week above $1,600 an ounce to trigger stories with headlines such as “Is gold getting ready for take-off?” However, gold ETFs and the futures market are painting different pictures on gold sentiment.
Bulls argue gold could make a powerful move higher because sentiment on the precious metal in the futures market is at the lowest level in several yields. In other words, the crowd is usually wrong and there are plenty of traders who could chase a rally………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Thanks to a strong dollar and lower demand, there have been just a few winners so far this year in the commodity ETF space (Read:Top Commodity ETFs in This Uncertain Market).
Some products in the grains or certain soft commodities have added double digits on the year but others have been under significant weakness and have, instead, slumped by double digits in the year-to-date period………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Investment in commodity indexes rose in June, snapping a three-month decline, as renewed hopes for a solution to the euro zone crisis boosted most risk assets, figures from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Monday.
In its first monthly data showing an uptick in commodity market positions since February, the CFTC said the value of net long index investments rose by $6.8 billion, or nearly 4 percent, to $190.8 billion in June………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The use of options will become an increasingly common way to hedge exposure while preserving the ability to profit from price volatility. Firms will recognize the importance of counterparty credit risk measurement in the aftermath of brokerage failures and as more volumes are cleared through exchanges.
Real-time risk analytics and reporting will be required to help control market and counterparty risk effectively and better value and assess trading decisions.Central clearing will drive a need for more precise analytics for predicting capital requirements and adequacy not only on a daily basis, but in real time………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Foreign-exchange average trading volumes in the U.K. fell to $2 trillion a day in April, a drop of 2 percent from October, according to a semi-annual survey published by the Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee.
Average daily trading declined 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the survey, published on the Bank of England’s website today. Average spot trading fell 12 percent to $711 billion per day in April, while currency-swaps trading increased 8 percent to $957 billion per day, the survey showed………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The euro’s troubles have sent the currency market into its worst slump since the financial crisis, with trading volumes falling world-wide for the first time since 2009, according to newly released central-bank data.
Average daily trading volume dropped 5% to $3.65 trillion in April in the world’s busiest markets, from $3.83 trillion a year earlier. It was the first year-over-year decline since the 2008 to 2009 period, when financial markets nearly ground to a halt amid a global credit crisis………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Hedge funds raised commodity bets in the longest bullish streak in three years as speculation that policy makers will increase economic stimulus drove prices toward the biggest monthly rally since October.
Money managers raised their net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 3.4 percent to 1.17 million contracts in the week ended July 24, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Wagers gained for seven weeks, the longest increase since June 2009. Corn bets climbed to the highest since September 2011, and traders are the most bullish on natural gas since October 2006………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Consensus forecasts distill the wisdom of crowds or rather a small crowd of the (purportedly) wise. But crowds also can be confusing. Take commodity-price forecasts. Comparing average estimates for the whole of 2012 with their performance so far tells us where analysts see prices going for the rest of the year. But the numbers implied by an analysis using FactSet data are a head-scratcher.
As recently as the start of June, analysts had forecast crude-oil futures to average $100 a barrel in 2012. That has been cut to under $95, implying a price for the rest of the year of $92, just 3% above today’s level. Forecasts for Brent crude and natural gas, meanwhile, imply price drops from here………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The world’s economy is passing through a low growth environment and this is in stark contrast to the first half of the last decade, when we had a global boom. Today, Europe is on the brink of recession, the US economy is growing at only 2% per year and it appears as though China is facing a major slowdown.
Given these circumstances, we are of the view that the prices of natural resources will struggle to retain last decade’s momentum. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Oil prices will likely gain this week on expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve may announce additional stimulus to help boost an anemic recovery in the world’s largest economy while markets are looking towards the European Central Bank to suppress unsustainably high sovereign borrowing costs in Spain and Italy, according to CNBC’s weekly survey of oil market sentiment.
The risk-on rally in global financial markets started on Thursday after ECB President Mario Draghi vowed that “within our mandate, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro,” adding “believe me, it will be enough.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

OPEC crude exports, excluding those from Angola and Ecuador, are expected to average 23.84 million b/d over the four weeks to August 11, down 70,000 b/d from the previous four-week period, UK-based tanker tracker Oil Movements said.
Compared with the same four-week period of 2011, the latest forecast from Oil Movements shows a rise in OPEC crude exports of 1.18 million b/d………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Since the middle of the last decade, rising demand for physical commodities from developing economies has provided opportunities for attractive returns. At the same time, growing participation of financial investors searching for alternatives to traditional asset classes has made commodities – and the energy sector in particular – a widely accepted investment class.
As a result, commodity assets under management have grown exponentially, reaching $435 billion earlier this year according to Barclays Capital. With financial investors entering the market, the diversification and sophistication of instruments and strategies has increased dramatically………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Both platinum and gold are useful metals. but where gold’s use is ultimately social - being a thing of beauty, symbol of power, store of value and a means of exchange since the earliest civilizations - platinum is primarily an industrial metal. Which isn’t helping platinum versus the gold price one bit right now.
Platinum - from platina, meaning “little silver” in Modern Latin via Spanish - was only identified as a precious metal in the mid-18th century. So it lacks gold’s long history of human use. In our modern age of global commodity markets, unbacked fiat currency, and fast-growing car ownership however, little silver has always traded at a steep premium to gold - a 46% premium per ounce on average………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold has been deeply out of favor lately, languishing in its usual summer doldrums. This sentiment wasteland is driving traders to flee wholesale, including the futures players. Their mass exodus from the gold market is readily apparent in futures data.
But provocatively such behavior is a powerful contrarian indicator, heralding the birth of major new uplegs in gold. Bearish futures traders are a bullish omen………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Comex gold futures ended higher on Friday on course for its biggest weekly gain in almost two months, after the European Central Bank President, Mario Draghi, signalled the bank would do whatever was necessary to hold the euro zone together.
Market participants will also keep an eye on Fed’s policy meeting and the key non-farm payrolls data next week. Gold has been seesawing in a broad range, partly due to the Fed’s ambiguity on further easing………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Parsons is predicting that the gold price will move in a range between $1550 and $2025 with a year-end price of $1900. This is very much in the conservative mid range of most other forecasters and analysts.
Parsons believes the US dollar will be a bullish factor for gold as it is fundamentally overvalued (specifically against the Yuan and associated currencies of the Far East), and should decline which will be quite bullish for gold………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Precious metals gained in 2011 on the strength of Central bank buying in developing countries, India and China demand and prospects of further quantitative easing, according to a quarterly review from Natixis.
At the same time, the market is becoming increasingly fixated on quantitative easing as weak economic figures from the US have recently emerged. A third round of QE would be strongly supportive for precious metal prices as it would fundamentally undermine the market’s current preference for the dollar as its safe-haven of choice………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Silver prices may rise in the second half of 2012 and 2013, according to BNP Paribas S.A. (Euronext: BNP) in a commodity research note. The German bank also revised its average forecasts of $33.50 an ounce for 2012 and $41.70/oz for 2013.
Anne-Laure Tremblay, precious-metals strategist at BNP stated that,“ the assumption of a further round of monetary stimulus is at the heart of our forecast for a higher silver price, although we do not see it returning to its highs of April 2011.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Steel prices are expected to rise by 7.2 per cent this year and the rates will start firming up from October due to rise in demand in spite of weakness in international markets, economic think-tank CMIE has said.
“Price hike of the alloy is likely to begin from October. Steel demand normally picks up when monsoon season ends and the construction activity gathers pace. We expect prices to rise by 7.2 per cent in 2012,” the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy said in its monthly report………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Australian Foundation Investment Co, a fund owning shares in BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Group, said it would encourage companies to cut back on investments in new operations as commodity prices fall.
Mining companies will start to question the economics of projects as prices fall and costs rise, Ross Barker, chief executive officer of the listed Melbourne-based fund with a market value of A$4.5 billion ($4.7 billion), told the Australian Broadcasting Corp’s Inside Business program. “That is obviously something we would encourage because we don’t want to spend large amounts of money and not get good returns.”……………………………………….Full Article: Source

The nation’s biggest listed investment fund and one of BHP Billiton’s top shareholders has applauded moves by big miners to shelve Australian projects because of high costs and sliding commodity prices.
Over the weekend, the most likely of Australia’s next big uranium developments, the Kintyre project in the Great Sandy desert, became the latest victim after being hit by sluggish prices for the nuclear fuel and Western Australia’s heated construction market………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Natural gas has been one of the most talked about commodities this year, as its prices tumbled at the start of 2012. Up until a few months ago, NG had been one of the worst performing commodities over the past few years, as the recession started the fossil fuel on a slippery slope that it would never fully recover from
In fact, low prices and a supply surplus forced many major companies to switch to oil exploration as opposed to doing the same for gas. “Last April about half of the nation’s 1,800 or so drilling rigs were looking for oil while half were looking for gas, according to IA………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Overall for all commodity ETPs are around $1.1bn in outflows, but that compares to total assets of around $175bn, so really quite a small outflow given that many investors were de-risking during that period.
But under that headline number there are a lot of divergences and as you highlighted earlier the flows into the precious metals were particularly interesting with overall very strong inflows into gold in particular………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The turnover of 21 commodity exchanges has risen by 6.5 per cent to Rs 48.29 lakh crore till July 15 of the current fiscal despite a fall in trade volumes in gold and silver, according to the Forward Markets Commission (FMC).
The turnover of these exchanges stood Rs 45.34 lakh crore in the same period last fiscal, the commodity markets regulator FMC said on its website………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Sinking prices for commodities such as iron ore and coal are sapping Australia’s export earnings and putting at risk billions of dollars of mining investment, a major reason it has so far dodged the recessions of the rich world.
Typically the Australian dollar would act as a safety valve, falling in line with commodities to boost exports. But this time demand from investors and central banks fleeing the euro for safer returns has seen it strengthen for the past eight weeks………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Market forces are mostly to blame for the yuan’s unprecedented fall against the dollar in recent months, market participants say, with Chinese regulators now busy propping up the currency, marking a major reversal in approach as the country’s economic growth slows.
The yuan has fallen 1.4 percent against the U.S. dollar this year and touched 10-month lows, its first period of extended weakness since China’s landmark de-pegging of the currency in July 2005………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: We all know about this year’s weather, which is so far proving to be quite difficult in certain areas. There are heat waves in the U.S. and Australia, droughts and floods in India and Brazil, more floods in Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Russia and China. This week-end for example, the heaviest rain to hit Beijing in more than 60 years left at least ten people dead and forced more than 50,000 to evacuate, Chinese state media said. And climate scientists are apparently suggesting that the U.S.’ freakish weather patterns in the last few weeks show a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, namely wildfires, heat waves, droughts, floods, and wind storms.
Climate indicators for an El Niño event (a temporary change in the climate of the Pacific ocean in the region around the equator) in the western Pacific have eased slightly, but meteorologists still expect the weather pattern, which can bring drought to the Asia-Pacific and damage crops to form late in 2012, Reuters reported. ……………………………………….Full Article: Source

Assigning analysts to cover the humdrum world of commodities and mining was once investment banking’s punishment for low-flyers or copybookblotters. Then China’s pulsating economy and appetite for raw materials sent the prices of industrial metals and bulk commodities soaring. It turned watching the dismal world of copper, zinc and nickel, and the mining firms that dug them up, from a role tantamount to constructive dismissal to glamour.
Can it last? Signs that China’s economy is coming off the boil—recent figures put annual growth in the second quarter at a mere 7.6% compared with the double-digit rates of the past few years—have led some to suggest the commodity boom is over and prices are likely to crumble. That prognosis looks premature………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The worst drought to hit the USA in over half a century has sent international food prices climbing again. Prices for corn and soybeans (the USA is the world’s biggest producer of both) last week passed the peaks they reached during the 2007/8 global food crisis which saw riots in over 30 countries, the number of hungry pass 1 billion, and the humanitarian system overwhelmed by spiralling demand for food aid.
Things are not yet this bad. First, corn and soybeans are not the most important commodities for poor households, which typically depend more on rice and wheat (for bread)………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A heatwave across southern Europe and the biggest drought since the Great Depression in the United States continue to drive wheat and corn prices higher, with local investors increasingly keen to get direct exposure to soft commodity markets.
Falling base metal prices and fears that the resources boom may have already peaked mean a growing number of Australian investors are looking more closely at soft commodities, particularly as extreme weather conditions boost prices………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Manipulating international commodity benchmarks such as Brent crude oil would be a criminal offence, punishable by jail, under a set of reforms the EU Commission has proposed in response to the rigging of a major interest reference rate.
The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, announced on Wednesday plans to tighten supervision of financial benchmarks after a scandal involving interbank lending rate Libor, used to set prices for trillions of dollars of financial products………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Commodity market regulator FMC today said it would not allow traders to manipulate futures price of agriculture items and could ban its trading if required in the backdrop of poor monsoon rains affecting kharif crops.
The regulator has doubled the deposit money that a trader is required to keep with exchanges for trading in turmeric following unusual price movement. “We are keeping a close watch on all agriculture commodities. We will take action as and when required………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will trim exports through to the middle of next month as refiners cut their crude intake during seasonal maintenance, according to tanker-tracker Oil Movements.
OPEC, responsible for about 40 percent of global supplies, will curb daily exports by 0.3 percent to 23.84 million in the four weeks to Aug. 11, compared with 23.91 million a month earlier, the researcher said today in an e-mailed report. The data exclude Angola and Ecuador………………………………………..Full Article: Source

A recent study by Luciana Juvenal and Ivan Petrella suggests that the financialization of oil futures markets contributed significantly to the surge in oil prices after 2003. Lutz Kilian, Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, questions their analysis and highlights that their paper actually does not shed any light on the role of Wall Street speculation.
The question of how much speculative pressures contributed to the surge in the real price of oil between 2003 and mid-2008 continues to be hotly debated in policy circles. A common view among policy makers is that excessive speculation driven by the financialization of oil futures markets played a key role in causing oil prices to peak at unprecedented levels in mid-2008………………………………………..Full Article: Source

The latest earnings from some of Canada’s biggest gold producers demonstrate the sector, like base-metal miners and energy companies, are equally susceptible to rising costs, production disruptions and lower resource prices. That’s despite a more resilient gold price.
Prices for a wide swath of commodities have slumped in recent months. Gold, not so much………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Hong Kong’s largest gold-storage facility, which can hold about 22 percent of the bullion now in Fort Knox, will open in September to meet rising demand from banks and the wealthy, according to owner Malca-Amit Global Ltd.
The facility, located on the ground floor of a building within the international airport compound, has capacity for 1,000 metric tons, said Joshua Rotbart, general manager for the Hong Kong-based company’s Malca-Amit Precious Metals unit………………………………………..Full Article: Source

Gold ticked up again on Thursday, its third session of gains, on investor hopes for additional stimulus packages to be released by central banks increased the yellow metal’s appeal as an inflation hedge. Gold’s recent rise was on the wave of Ewald Nowotny ‘s comments and hopes that the US would employ further action after their policy meeting next week.
The UK’s growing recession which caused Moody’s to put their economic outlook to negative in February looks poised to lose their AAA status soon. Britain’s second quarter took a nose dive by 0.7% (far greater than Spain’s 0.4%). ……………………………………….Full Article: Source