30.07.2008 - Australian: Doubts grow over commodities
From businessspectator.com: The conventional wisdom on Australian miners is that because of the Chinese demand for resources, our mining stocks will perform well despite the tough times in Western economies. Underpinning that belief have been the big negotiated price rises in iron ore and coking coal and the strong marketplace prices for oil and copper. These pillars behind the bullish assumptions for miners are still in place but they are now open to question. Given all the turmoil on Wall Street, some of the best performing hedge funds have been those that have invested in oil. The rise in the price of black gold might have been caused by a shortage of supply but it has been multiplied by the hedge fund buying. Today in Business Spectator we have a report that some are forecasting that oil will fall below $US100 a barrel. That sort of decline would occur if hedge funds began selling oil either because they thought that there were now better games to play or because they were finding it harder to gain funds because of the squeeze on the banking system......Full Article Source
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