Latin America is widely regarded as a growth play in the equity markets. The explanation for this view is that the region is a commodity producer -- agricultural goods in Brazil and Argentina, metals in Brazil, Chile and Peru, oil in Venezuela and Ecuador, natural gas in Bolivia, etc.In general, that's a fair vision. However it must be better understood. Not all commodities are the same, and not all countries have the same economic policy or the same stage of developmentIt is well known that there is a high correlation between economic growth and commodities prices. In the past few years, this correlation has increased since the main source of growth was the emerging economies, in which economic growth is more intensive in commodities. For the future, we expect this correlation to increase even more, as emerging economies will keep on leading the growth and ...

Gold added about $20 to its price in Sydney trading first thing on Monday morning. This lasted right up until Hong Kong trading started a few hours later, and then went into a slow decline from there. This decline lasted through London…and then Comex trading in New York. Gold added to its gains in after-hours Globex trading.

Silver followed a similar path until New York opened. The price spike that ensued quickly got extinguished…and silver got sold off for about 50 cents right into the Comex close. From there the price recovered somewhat.

Volume in gold trading on Monday was still pretty light…but three times heavier than Friday’s volume. The HUI tacked on another 3% to the upside. Considering that the U.S. dollar came within an eyelash of gaining two full cents yesterday, I guess we should be thankful that both metals did as well as they did.

As far as changes in

...

Nouriel Roubini, professor at Stern School of Business at New York University and chairman of RGE Monitor, is renowned for having foreseen the current economic malaise a number of years ago. He was scorned at the time by mainstream economists for being a crank, but the same people are now lauding him for his foresight and paying top price for the consulting services of Roubini Global Economics.

Aline van Duyn, US Markets Editor of the Financial Times, has just conducted a three-part video interview with Roubini on topics ranging from the likely duration of the recession to regulation, the demise of more hedge funds and the outlook for stocks, commodities, currencies and bonds.

In Part 1 of the interview, Roubini expects 2009 to be a

...

It was cloudy in the Algerian city of Oran on Wednesday…and a fairly pleasant 14 degrees in the open air… But the assembled leaders of the OPEC oil exporters’ cartel must have been feeling rather hot under the collar. Since hitting a peak of $147 in July this year, the price of oil has fallen by about $100. That has put the oil exporting countries under a huge amount of pressure. And now they are determined to drive the price of oil back up again.

Global oil production is set to fall sharply

On Wednesday, the cartel announced that it will slash daily oil production by 2.46 million barrels a day. That’s OPEC’s biggest production cut ever. What’s even more extraordinary is that some of the big the non-OPEC producers are now coordinating their production cuts with the cartel.

The Russians attended the OPEC meeting and they may cut announce their own

...

The Canadian markets started the trading week off by going on their usual roller coaster ride with gains seen at the open gradually eroding into solid losses by the close of Monday trading. For the tale of the tape, the TSX Exchange fell 0.63%, while the TSX Gold Index gained 3.7% and the TSX Venture Exchange, Canada’s largest junior exploration bourse, lost 0.24% with the declining issuers beating out the advancers by a 458 to 399 margin on volume of 244 million shares traded.

After making a stink ball bid earlier in the year, Rusoro Mining has come back and is offering three of its share for every Gold Reserve (AMEX:GRZ) share. The move would alleviate Gold Reserve’s problem in Venezuela because Rusoro has the ears of the Chavez government. Rusoro ended the day down C$0.105 at C$0.255, while Gold Reserve soared C$0.28 to close at C$0.73.

Due to reduced

...

Between September 2007 and June 2008, oil prices doubled, gold rose 30% and commodities, in general, advanced by a similar percentage. So why, six months later, when prices have fallen back below last year’s levels, does everybody think they won’t rise again? The difficulties of extraction haven’t gone away, nor have the prospects of increasing consumption in the faster-growing emerging markets such as China. Yes, the prices of commodities are severely affected by marginal moves in supply and demand, but this is ridiculous! Rest assured, commodities prices will rebound in the New Year. The reasons will soon become quite clear. The decline in commodities prices since the summer is broad-based. The Reuters Continuous Commodities Index traded recently at 341, down 25% from a year earlier and off about 45% from its June high. At $48 a barrel, oil is trading at less ...

Last Friday, the president of Ecuador announced that the country would be defaulting on some of its foreign debt – specifically on its December 15th payment. A MarketWatch article entitled: “Ecuador Defaults on its Foreign Debt,” states that “Correa said Friday that the Andean country will not pay a $31 million coupon on the 2012 global bonds and declared his country in default, reports said. This is Ecuador’s second debt default in a decade. Ecuador’s government has been indicating for some time now that it might default on its external debt, which totals $3.8 billion, and has said in the past that it considers portions of it to be illegitimate. ‘It’s purely at this point a function of willingness, not ability [to pay],’ said Paul Biszko, senior emerging markets analyst at RBC Capital Markets.” The move helped to deflate some of the economic ...

Per the Financial Times today: Ecuador’s bonds fell sharply after the decision to default on $3.86bn of foreign debt on Friday, with its main benchmark bond yield jumping more than 100 basis points since Friday to trade at about 60 per cent. The decision of Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s radical leftist president, could return to haunt the country and others in the region as investors subsequently demand higher yields to buy their bonds. Although Ecuador attracts only investors willing to take big risks in exchange for high yields, even the most risk-hungry funds may think twice now. The country’s credit default swap prices, a form of insurance against debt defaults, are trading at more than 4,000 basis points, one of the highest sovereign prices in the world. The failure to pay a $30.6 million interest payment on its 2012 global bonds, despite the fact ...

Crude oil prices will likely remain low in the short term. Supply cuts will not keep pace with demand destruction in the near future. And that could send gas prices below $1 a gallon by Easter, says David Fessler. He gives two ways investors can turn their savings at the pump into big profits.

This from Investment U:

When I started driving, gasoline still contained lead and regular was selling for 29 cents a gallon. My father remembers 10 cents a gallon.

While it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever see those prices again, you could see gasoline below $1 a gallon, and it just might hit $0.75 a gallon. It might not be in time for Christmas, but the Easter Bunny might leave it in your Easter Basket.

That’s not just wishful thinking on my part: The International Energy Agency’s (IEA) most recent monthly forecast (released just yesterday) indicates year-over-year global oil

...

The brutal market sell-off in emerging markets has led many to doubt their importance in the global economy. But Horacio Marquez says the ‘right’ countries in Latin America will thrive in the New Year. Top of the class is Brazil, but Horacio also sees good opportunities in Chile and Mexico.

This from Money Morning:

The second phase of emerging markets expansion is well on its way – a period of self-sustaining growth, driven by consumer growth and infrastructure spending.  And Latin America, following China and other Asian economies, is one of the key global pillars of growth that will save the global economy and the U.S. financial system from total collapse. But not all the countries in Latin America will go on to prosper.  There is a wide gulf in the policies that will continue to separate the winners from the losers.

Let me explain.

In a recent article

...