Why are the prices of so many commodities rising in an economy that seems to remain quite weak?

% change butter35 coffee21.8 cocoa20.2 copper89.1 corn-8.3 cotton38.6 gold32.1 hogs2.7 oats13.4 oil63.2 lead81.9 palladium75.9 platinum61.7 silver59.1 steel-0.9 sugar73.6 tin22.5 wheat-26.6 zinc55.4 average37.4 euro12

The table at the right summarizes the percent change between January 6 and November 11 in the cash prices of 19 commodities reported in the Wall Street Journal (downloaded via Webstract). The average commodity in this list has appreciated 37% since the start of the year.

A recent paper by Ke Tang and Wei Xiong documents an increasing tendency for commodity prices to move together over the last few years. A decade ago, what happened to oil prices was largely unrelated to movements in most other commodity prices. The graphs below show how the correlations between oil prices and

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SINA Corporation (SINA) said that it has dropped plans for acquiring Focus Media Holding Limited (FMCN) due to the delay in approval from China's Ministry of Commerce regarding antitrust issues. The companies have decided not to extend the deadline of the agreement. In order to provide more effective and integrated marketing solutions, SINA entered into a definitive agreement with Focus Media Holding Ltd. in 2008 to acquire substantially all of the assets of Focus Media's digital out-of-home advertising networks, including LCD display network, poster frame network and in-store network.   SINA had said that the $1.4 billion transaction was undergoing antitrust review by the Department of Commerce in China. The companies said that the delay in receiving the approval from the antitrust authorities negatively impacted its business operations. Thus, after due consideration the decision to terminate the contract was taken jointly by both the companies. The ...

While prices of gold don’t necessarily affect silver prices or vice versa, history has demonstrated that when gold rises or falls, silver usually follows suit.

This time around, silver has failed to match the gains that gold posted in recent months, spawning a widespread believe that silver is poised for a bull run. Such factors as a decline in supply and a weakening U.S. dollar have buttressed that bullish belief. And so has the fact that China’s government is strongly encouraging that country’s residents to buy the white metal.

With Beijing’s plan to inject $587 billion (4 trillion yuan) into China’s economy, and a growing desire to diversify away from the U.S. dollar as its key reserve currency, the Asian giant could increase its reliance on such precious metals as gold and silver – especially if global inflation takes hold.

China’s central bank “could use gold, silver or even a basket of

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Guidance Overview   SINA Corporation’s (SINA) third quarter revenue guidance of $91.0 – $94.0 million was below the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $97.0 million. The shares fell 1.12% and closed at $30 yesterday when the company’s lower third quarter 2009 outlook disappointed investors. SINA expects Advertising revenues to be $60.0 – $62.0 million and non-advertising revenues to be $31.0 – $32.0 million in the third quarter. The company remains guarded on advertising spending, particularly brand advertising, as consumers remain cautious. Economic growth in China has continued to slow down in the global economic downturn. SINA is also facing severe competition in its mobile business and expects it to be flat in the next few quarters. Competition in the online brand advertising field in China is fierce crowded by big players such as Sohu.com Inc. (SOHU), Shanda Interactive (SNDA) and Baidu, Inc. (BIDU)....

The feud between authorities in China and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) escalated Wednesday night when Chinese users were blocked from Google’s global Web site for a period of at least two hours.

For weeks China has been chastising Google for disseminating “huge amounts of porn and lewd information.” The company has made a strong effort to accommodate Beijing’s high “moral” standard by launching a separate Chinese Web site, Google.cn, to filter out sensitive information.

Still, China’s war on the search engine has only intensified. That has led some analysts to believe that the communist government is acting on behalf of Baidu Inc. (Nasdaq ADR: BIDU), or perhaps as part of a smear campaign to drum up support for its latest attempt to tighten its grip on Internet content that is becoming harder to control.

Google’s word association feature – a drop-down box that offers suggestions based on the terms typed

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(Adds Transneft comment in paragraphs 4-5)

By Robin Paxton and Vladimir Soldatkin

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) – China has agreed to lend Russian oil companies $25 billion in return for supplies from huge new East Siberian oilfields that will power its economy for the next two decades.

Russia’s state oil champion Rosneft (ROSN.MM) and pipeline monopoly Transneft (TRNF_p.RTS) on Tuesday signed a long-delayed deal to borrow the money from China Development Bank during talks in Beijing, sources close to the deal told Reuters.

“We agreed on supplies of 15 million tonnes of oil every year over a period of 20 years,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin told state news channel Vesti 24. He said a separate loan deal was signed but gave no further details.

Transneft Vice-President Mikhail Barkov said his company would receive $10 billion of the

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Because of its rapid economic growth over the last 30 years, it’s easy to forget that China is a communist country. The Chinese, like everybody else, love money. But the Communist party is clearly in control. One of the areas controlled with an iron communist fist is China’s media. The main TV station, China Central Television or CCTV, is owned, operated, and controlled by the government. And unlike the U.S., Chinese government officials can’t spout off their own opinion. Instead, they must speak the ‘company line’ of the ruling Communist Party and carefully choose their words....