by William Davies

Global commodity trading now takes place on a growing platform of modern, transparent commodity exchanges across all time zones. Using agreed frameworks of rules and regulations and standard contract designs we now see a wide range of commodities traded between end users and primary producers. The result is that it is now much easier to buy and sell across the range of basic commodities from orange juice to gold bullion, from crude oil to coffee beans.

While some of the major commodities like coffee and crude oil have been traded for a number of years, we are now seeing in modern commodity markets the strong innovation theme leading to new futures contracts being traded. One area where new product development has made a notable change is in the trading of carbon emission permits. Given the growing global concern about the serious long term impact to the environment …

by Taipan Greene

How to invest in oil is a subject of interest to many traders in a world economy that is largely driven by the price and availability of products derived from products obtained from crude oil, like gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, plastics, and fertilizer.

It is hard to imagine a world in which these products are extremely expensive or not widely available but that could be the case within a few years.

The term Peak Oil is one that most investors are now aware of. Yet the meaning of peak oil is widely misunderstood. Peak Oil does not mean that the world is nearing a time where there is no oil available. Rather it refers to the rapidly developing situation in the production of oil where the major oil fields of the world are in a state of production decline and even with new technology no major …

Source: www.GoldForecaster.com 06/27/2008
In a long week in which attempts to lower the oil price and talks about the $ were disappointed [ G-8 meeting and the oil producer’s meeting in Saudi Arabia], the threat of much higher oil prices, a weaker $ and perhaps a vicious fall in equity market in the next few months, Joseph Lieberman, the head of the Senate Banking Committeee. is proposing what in effect are Exchange Control measures on commodity markets and foreign exchanges that host commodity dealing. This week we saw a glimpse of what is to be proposed and is proposing as we send this out.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, tasked with finding controls over speculation in the commodities markets, revealed the drafts of three bills that would sharply curtail the activities of financial investors in the commodities markets.

The most extreme proposal would prohibit private and public pension funds with more than …

June 19, 2008

Day after day investors continue to look for excuses to bottom pick financials and pick tops in energy and commodity markets. With some spectacular short-term exceptions most have failed. Someday these players will be proven right but for now it’s all just pure speculation and a game for institutions only.

Volume was heavy but breadth was mixed. Note the heavy upside volume in the NASDAQ while A/D line was unremarkable. This reflects the heavy focus on big tech names and can be attributed to impending quad witching on Friday.

Let’s look at the “Four Horsemen” which were the previous market leaders and still enjoy most …

This is my first comment since Thursday given travel and lengthy meetings. Friday’s rally action had me stumped I’ll admit since it didn’t seem based on anything substantial. All it served to do was to keep us primarily on the sidelines.

Today we got a hot PPI at 1.4% which was dismissed early as the Kool Aid drinker’s focused on the “core rate” ex-food and energy up a “mild” .2%. But, how much more of these silly core rate numbers investors can swallow is beyond any thoughtful consideration. Anyway later in the day reality hit home as Goldman Sachs issued a downbeat assessment on financials ex-themselves naturally.

Volume was on the light side while breadth was as negative as you might expect.

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As today progressed it seems bulls wasted good buying power. I left for the airport at noon amid a strong rally, but when opening the laptop to check on things at the hotel the rally had fizzled despite a “stick save” into the close.

Yesterday I noted the McClellan Oscillator as oversold and it didn’t take much in the way of news to kick-start stocks higher. The retail sales data got Uncle Buck going too as bond yields rose which also hit gold hard early. That data was of course the result of refund checks Chucky was quick to spend. But, it also included higher food and energy prices that goosed the reading some. And, hey, we’re supposed to exclude food and energy prices according to Big Brother aren’t we? It’s only right. No matter how you …

Today markets fretted about Lehman Bros. and pondered the messages from Bernanke and impending congressional hearings regarding commodity market “speculation”. The dollar rallied from Bernanke’s comments and commodity markets were pressured by it and potential congressional action.

Volume picked up substantially from the malaise of the past few weeks and breadth was negative particularly on NASDAQ volume. [Yahoo/Finance has an obvious glitch in adding columns.]

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