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Global Food Crisis 2010 Means Financial Armageddon Commodities / Food Crisis Dec 25, 2009 - 04:12 PM By: Eric deCarbonnel If you read any economic, financial, or political analysis for 2010 that doesn’t mention the food shortage looming next year, throw it in the trash, as it is worthless. There is overwhelming, undeniable evidence that the world will run out of food next year. When this happens, the resulting triple digit food inflation will lead panicking central banks around the world to dump their foreign reserves to appreciate their currencies and lower the cost of food imports, causing the collapse...

Prepared For An Exceptional Correction By Bill Bonner 12/22/09 Paris, France – The price of gold fell $15 yesterday, to close below $1,100. We expected a correction in the gold market. But we thought it would come along with a correction in the stock market. Stocks rose 85 points on the Dow yesterday. We take this as a warning: something is going on that we don’t understand. That said, there’s a lot going on that we don’t understand. But the broad patterns generally make sense. Boom was followed by bust. As dear readers know, the force of a correction is...

The Baltic Dry Index Is Collapsing Vincent FernandoDec. 21, 2009, 1:06 PM Dry bulk vessel over-supply is finally taking its toll, the Baltic Dry Index (BDI) has gone into a nosedive as shown below. US-listed dry bulk stocks such as DryShips (DRYS) and Eagle Bulk (EGLE) have been drifting lower. While the current index level is still equivalent to historically strong rates, continued strength in 2010 is entirely predicated on continued growth of Chinese dry bulk raw material imports. While November iron ore imports were encouraging and 2009 was a year of surprising strength, with China it could all disappear...

Why Stresses To The Global Economy Will Push Oil To $40 Euan MearnsDec. 18, 2009, 6:31 AM(This guest post was originally published by Euan Mearns at The Oil Drum. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.) Figure 1 Oil supply - demand - price chart, Jan. 2002 to Nov. 2009. See text for explanation. Click to enlarge and open in separate browser window. In February this year, global oil production / demand hit an interim low of 84.0 million barrels per day (mmbpd) and the average price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) that...

Crude Oil Headed Lower? Commodities / Crude Oil Dec 17, 2009 - 09:47 AM By: INO The crude oil market continues to soften and is now close to some important levels that I think we should look at. In my new video we look at what is happening in this market right now and what we expect to happen in the future. As we have indicated in our earlier posts, we are now in the official “silly season” for trading. What I mean by that is the markets will be very thin, choppy and can be moved by a relatively...

Agri-Food's And The Global Warming Research Dollars Ponzi Scam Commodities / Agricultural Commodities Dec 14, 2009 - 03:34 PM By: Ned_W_Schmidt The Global Warming Scam may finally be on its way to well-deserved oblivion. Take your pick of discrediting events, the snow storms that hit the Midwestern U.S., snow at the start of the Australian Summer, -40 degree temps in Western Canada, or Climategate. The Global Warming Scam appears now to have been nothing more than a giant research dollar Ponzi-like scheme. Researchers would take research dollars, cook some numbers, discard other data, and exchange dubious research for more funding...

Sell Your Gold Only IF You Want To Lose Money! Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Dec 12, 2009 - 12:14 PM By: Sean_Brodrick Something about gold just makes people irrational. The latest meme making the rounds in the mainstream media is that gold is a bad investment over the longer term. A couple of radio hosts asked me about it, and even Bloomberg ran a story on this earlier this week, saying that gold can’t beat the returns on a checking account over the last 30 years. The rest of the story was about while hedge fund managers are...

Gold To Be Supported By Investment, Central Bank And Chinese New Year Demand Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Dec 08, 2009 - 04:57 AM By: GoldCore Gold recovered some of yesterday's pullback and went as high as $1,164 overnight. Gold is currently trading at $1,162/oz and in euro and GBP terms, gold is trading at €783/oz and £710/oz respectively. The short term trend remains down and this should continue until we get a few higher daily closes or another higher weekly close. However, there is much investment and central bank demand waiting in the wings to buy on any...

Stock Market , Gold, Commodities And Economic Forecasts For 2010 Stock-Markets / Forecasts & Technical Analysis Dec 07, 2009 - 08:33 AM By: Martin_D_Weiss Martin Weiss: Two recent mega-events — the Wall Street collapse in 2008 and the Washington response in 2009 … the debt implosion and then the money printing explosion — are mind-boggling in their dimensions. Neither you nor I can know with certainty what the future will bring. But at this particular juncture, we don’t have to poke around in hidden crevices of the economy. Nor must we stretch our imagination to conjure this or that scenario....

Precious Metals Stocks, Breakout Or Plunge? Commodities / Gold & Silver Stocks Dec 02, 2009 - 07:12 PM By: Przemyslaw_Radomski In a world of paper currencies and paper promises, I can think of many reasons right off the top of my head why the price of gold will continue to go up in the long term, however since this essay's length is limited, I'll just mention 5 of them. In short, while it may feel like a bubble to some, I believe we are just warming up. Last week I mentioned a few of such reasons, but I would like...

Economic Recovery? Commodity Charts Don't Think So by: Wildebeest November 30, 2009 These are buoyant times for (some) commodity investors, and (some) commodity producers, but what does it mean in terms of a global recovery? A common feature among people drawing conclusions about the economy from commodity markets tends to be a sole focus on price, and even then only prices in exchange traded commodities. If buyers outnumber sellers prices rise, so rising prices mean a return of global demand, which in turn means global recovery -- right? Well not quite, despite the enthusiasm displayed in many articles pushing that...

Gold Hits Record Near $1,200/Oz As Dollar Slips Tue Dec 1, 2009 5:53am EST By Jan Harvey LONDON (Reuters) - Gold hit record highs near $1,200 an ounce on Tuesday as dollar weakness fueled buying of the metal as an alternative asset, while investors speculating on further gains were cheered by its recovery from Friday's lows. Spot gold hit a peak of $1,198.70 an ounce and was bid at $1,194.90 an ounce at 1021 GMT (5:21 a.m. EST), against $1,179.10 late in New York on Monday. "The fact that we are seeing the dollar weaken is helping to drive gold,"...

As an American living in Canada and a do-it-yourself (DIY) investor, I've decided to short the US dollar and to keep the majority of my holdings in Canada resource companies (oil and gas, gold mining). This is a play that has worked well so far. When the resource-heavy Canadian stock market felt serious pressure during the credit crisis I was able to pick up some bargains. I am far from alone in this strategy. PetroChina's purchase of a $1.9 billion stake in Alberta's Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. and Korean National Oil Corp.'s plan to acquire outright Harvest Energy Trust for...

Investors Buy Gold As Central Banks On Course To Crash World Economy Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 26, 2009 - 02:59 AM By: Bob_Chapman Investors buy gold when there is inflation and when there is a flight to quality. They buy gold when they no longer trust currencies, due to government or central bank profligacy. Due to those and other reasons gold has broken out to new highs. It could well be that gold may never see $1,000 again. Long ago the world’s central banks set the course for a planned collapse of the world economy to implement...

Zinc Dimes, Counterfeit Tungsten Gold And Lost Interest Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 18, 2009 - 11:40 AM By: Jim_Willie_CB In 1964 the USGovt introduced the zinc dimes clad with silver. They at least admitted the debauchery publicly. Now pre-1964 silver coins are all considered different, and valued differently too, higher. Rome committed the same coinage fraud 1900 years ago. Their Empire went bust as the city burned almost concurrently. Ayn Rand is a guiding light for Alan Greenspan, the enabling destroyer of the US banking system, destroyer of the US household archipelago, and dispatcher of the US...

Roubini Says Gold $2,000 Is Utter Nonsense Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 18, 2009 - 11:28 AM By: Q1_Publishing “Maybe [gold] will reach $1,100 or so but $1,500 or $2,000 is nonsense.” That’s what Nouriel Roubini said a few days ago at the Inside Commodities Conference in New York. The comments from the economist credited with foreseeing the banking crisis were aimed squarely at investing legend Jim Rogers. According to reports, Roubini specifically referred to Rogers’ call for $2000 gold as “utter nonsense.” Since then, gold has continued to set new highs and is attracting a lot more...

Stock Market Rally Priced In Gold Not Dollars Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 13, 2009 - 03:41 PM By: Adrian_Ash Non-US investors haven't enjoyed the same stock rally as Wall Street. Whereas in gold... "THE DOLLAR is still driving gold," agree the analysts, pundits and chart-watchers now scratching their heads about where gold is headed next. That's kind of true, but not entirely. Yes, the Dollar's fall against gold since the start of this decade has been greater than the drop suffered to date by the rest of the world's currencies. But the last 20% move in Dollar...

Gold’s Rally Suggests Silver Will Ride The Coattails Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 11, 2009 - 04:25 PM By: Dr_Jeff_Lewis As investors begin their shift away from currencies and into hard assets, gold has waltzed well past $1000 per ounce and has since pushed through $1100. Because precious metals have been long seen as an effective hedge against inflation, investors have been the biggest driver of demand. The Gold to Silver Ratio Throughout history, gold and silver have been tethered together in the eyes of investors. Once one of the metals moves too high or falls too low,...

Gold Continues To Gain Against All Currencies Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 11, 2009 - 07:39 AM By: Adrian_Ash THE PRICE OF GOLD rose to fresh record highs against the US Dollar for the fifth session in six in early London dealing on Wednesday, recording an AM Gold Fix above $1114 an ounce. Up by more than 28% for 2009 to date for US investors, gold also rose against all other currencies, breaking its best level against the Japanese Yen since July 2008 above ¥3220 per gram as world stock markets gained, government bonds held steady, and crude...

Gold Slips To $1100 As UK Faces Potential Credit Ratings Downgrade Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 10, 2009 - 07:43 AM By: Adrian_Ash THE PRICE OF WHOLESALE gold slipped 1% from Monday's new record high early in London today, briefly drifting through $1100 an ounce as Asian stock markets closed the day higher but European shares held flat. Crude oil ticked back down to $80 per barrel, but remained higher by one-third from this time last year. The US Dollar held steady after Monday's sharp losses. Ten-year Treasury bonds offered 3.45% in yield. "A correction is reasonable after...

Industrial Materials Shine As Global Economy Seen TurningCitigroup analysts envision near-60% EPS gain in materials sector next year Kate Gibson MarketWatch Nov. 9, 2009, 3:23 p.m. EST NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- With industrial materials among the first to benefit as the global economy turns, the sector ranks as the No. 2 performer among the S&P 500's 10 industry groups so far this year -- and Citigroup analysts now see nearly a 60% earnings-per-share rebound as likely for the sector in 2010. Bankers' Clients Want More Love, More MoneyBonds of trust between investment banks and their clients have in some cases...

Gold Bars Selling Like Hotcakes At Harrods Henry BlodgetNov. 8, 2009, 9:49 AM Gold smashed through an all-time high of $1,100 an ounce on Friday, bringing some solace to gold bugs who have been losing money on the metal since the 1980s. Gold still hasn't come anywhere near its late-1980's peak on an inflation-adjusted basis ($1,800 or so), belying the general theory that it's a great inflation hedge. As the world gold frenzy really takes hold, however, $2,000-an-ounce predictions are coming fast and furious, so there's always hope. The NYT surveys the gold landscape, checking in on the ultimate symbol...

Gold Reaches New Record Above $1,100 By Nick Godt MarketWatch NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures barreled to a new record high above $1,100 an ounce on Friday, as news that the U.S. unemployment rate topped 10.2% in October boosted expectations the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero well into next year, pressuring the dollar. Gold for December delivery, the most active futures contract, rose as high as $1,100.50 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gained up to $1,101.90 an ounce in electronic trade. It recently gained $6.40, or 0.6%, to $1,095.80. The U.S. economy...

You might think that Warren Buffett's $34 billion bid for the rest of Burlington Northern Santa Fe ( BNI - news - people ) is the most eye-catching investment decision of the day. While the Oracle of Omaha's bullish bet on America is hardly insignificant, I would like to direct your attention half a world away and ostensibly in a different investment medium: spot gold. India's central bank bulked up that nation's gold reserves by 55% with the purchase of $6.7 billion worth of gold from the International Monetary Fund, which is selling gold reserves to raise funds for lending...

Gold Confiscation Risk Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Nov 02, 2009 - 02:05 AM By: Howard_Katz Things are looking good for the gold bugs these days. September and early October saw the (long awaited) break above $1,000. This past week saw the technical pull back to the breakout point, and Thursday was the turnaround day. Friday saw some very bullish candlestick signals in many of the gold stocks. But one thing has been bothering many gold bugs. In 1933, the U.S. Government confiscated the people’s gold. The Government even went into safety deposit boxes (in private banks) and took...

How And Why China Will Flood The Gold Market Commodities / Gold & Silver 2009 Oct 31, 2009 - 09:07 AM By: DailyWealth Jeff Clark of Casey Research writes: As you read this, the Chinese government is doing an extraordinary thing... something nearly unheard of in the modern world. It is encouraging citizens to put at least 5% of their savings into precious metals. The Chinese government is telling people gold and silver are good investments that will safeguard their wealth. After last year's meltdown in the stock market, people believe it. After all, Chinese citizens don't receive government retirement...

Biofuel refineries in the US have set fresh records for grain use every month since May. Almost a third of the US corn harvest will be diverted into ethanol for motors this year, or 12pc of the global crop. The world's grain stocks have dropped from four to 2.6 months cover since 2000, despite two bumper harvests in North America. China's inventories are at a 30-year low. Asian rice stocks are near danger level. Yet farm commodities have largely missed out on Bernanke's reflation rally in metals, oil, and everything else. Dylan Grice from Société Générale sees "bargain basement" prices....

Buy Food – Price Rises Are Almost Guaranteed By Garry White Published: 7:50PM GMT 25 Oct 2009 There are two main drivers of commodity prices – supply and demand. This is just as true with soft commodities such as wheat, rice, sugar and cocoa as it is with copper and tin. The big problem for your weekly shopping budget in the future is that there are problems on both sides of the equation that are likely to squeeze prices higher, permanently. However, this also provides a great investment opportunity and now is a good time to buy into many areas...

Jim Rogers On The Next Ten Years By Heather BellOctober 17,2009 I’m moving to China … possibly to live in a bunker. At least that was my inclination after listening to a presentation by Jim Rogers Thursday. Now don’t get me wrong―Mr. Commodities wasn’t all doom and gloom. In fact, his talk was both informative and highly entertaining. But Rogers doesn’t sugarcoat things―he’s very matter-of-fact about his concerns and projections for the future. And most of them don’t bode well for the U.S. I’ll be posting an interview with Jim Rogers on the site in the coming week, but for...

Iron ore imports 50M tonnes over demand BEIJING: China's iron ore imports have exceeded actual demand by about 50 million tonnes so far this year and the oversupply leaves no room for further price rises, a senior official of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said on Monday. "We believe the Chinese iron ore price is largely influenced by speculation on the market," CISA's Vice Chairman Luo Bingsheng told reporters at the sideline of an industry conference in Beijing. China imported 405 million tonnes of iron ore in the first eight months of this year, up 32 percent from...

Rumors are flying that secret meetings are taking place between Arab states, China, Russia, Japan and France, to dump the dollar and replace the U.S. currency’s role in the pricing of oil. The dollar fell against the euro, yen and Swiss franc, while gold hit new highs of $1,041 an ounce. Is there any truth to the rumors that the dollar is being replaced by a basket of foreign currencies, and what will be the impact your investments and the U.S. economy?

Nutrition and public policy expert Marion Nestle answers readers' questions in this column written exclusively for The Chronicle. E-mail your questions to food@sfchronicle.com, with Marion Nestle in the subject line. Q: I saw you on "The Colbert Report" (Aug. 19) talking about sugar policy. Explain, please. I don't understand why sugar policy is a topic for Comedy Central. A: Neither did I until I saw Stephen Colbert douse himself with 5 pounds of sugar over the impending "crisis." We have a sugar crisis? According to processed food manufacturers, we are about to run out of sugar. Horrors! Earlier in August,...

And then...Presto! Just like magic through stimulus and some fancy footwork the economy begins to look like it is improving, but is it really? Knowing that stimulus money must eventually run out, that the number of American's out of work continues to grow, that Europe's unemployment is at 10 year highs, and that some Asian countries are starting to falter how can we believe this? We shouldn't and through our knowledge of that we should be looking for opportunities to capitalize on the bear market rally's turn around. In particular we should be looking to banking stocks, auto manufacturing stocks,...

Every so often I'm asked to describe the role of juniors in the commodities industry. And I simply reply, "They're like rabbits". Rabbits are seemingly insignificant and useless animals. But in actuality they serve a critical role in the food chain as a valuable source of nourishment for larger animals. Like rabbits, juniors are seemingly insignificant. But their function in commodities lifecycles is indispensable. And also like rabbits, juniors are a valuable source of nourishment to their predators. One of their major roles is to feed the larger resource companies, ultimately serving to provide sustenance and longevity. The primary purpose...

Sometime people do learn from history, though the number that intentionally do so are few. Perhaps one of the largest groups of people that seem to lack the ability to learn from history is composed of economists. The facts that they choose to intentionally ignore are near mind boggling. Two asset bubbles, technology and housing, were claimed to be non existent, until they collapsed. Now, that same group of myopic number crunchers believes that economic growth in Western economies is about to reignite. Is some skepticism appropriate? Now again, in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve doubling its assets, we...

Do you have to be a power-plant owner to really understand the natural gas market? Should makers of aluminum siding being the only ones allowed to buy aluminum? These are the kinds of questions being raised in many commodities markets today. The issue is speculators versus users of fuels, metals and agricultural products. Both of these groups are big investors in commodities. Users buy these goods to consume them. Speculators buy without any intention of ever using them. A speculator looks purely to make a profit by buying and selling the rights to a pound of copper or a barrel...

Think about it. Chinese banks are lending three times as much during the most severe world economic downturn since the depression as they did when the Chinese economy was booming last year. A tripling of lending would inevitably lead to the financing of numerous negative net present value projects even in normal times. In current circumstances, the waste of resources must be astounding. As I’ve written before, massive government stimulus like that being undertaken in China and being funneled through the banks can lead to increases in measured output. But the return on the projects funded is usually negative, and...

The sugar market is watching the heavens as bad weather in Brazil and India, the world’s two largest producers, threatens crops and pushes prices skyward. Traders and industry executives say, in rare agreement, that prices could hit a 28-year high – above 19.73 cents per pound – this year because of poor weather, steady consumption and low global inventories.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., under fire for reaping record trading profits in the teeth of the financial crisis, is now fighting to defend one of its major sources of revenue -- commodities trading -- as regulators consider setting limits on Wall Street speculators. Goldman and other big investment firms are scheduled to appear at a series of hearings held by the Commodity Futures Trade Committee starting Tuesday, as the Obama administration launches its biggest move yet to clamp down on commodities speculation, which has roiled prices from oil to corn and wheat in recent years. At issue for the investment...

In November of 1997, my partner and co-editor of The Casey Report, Doug Casey, wrote an article titled "Foundations of Crisis," which leaned heavily on the research of Neil Howe and the late William Strauss. Howe and Strauss have written many books on how generations determine the course of history and how they will shape America's future. Their forecasts on a wide variety of indicators have turned out to be amazingly accurate. As eye-opening as Doug's predictions were, they brought us only to the onset of the current crisis. Consequently, we thought it both timely and important to check back...

GM is finishing up its bankruptcy and will emerge today. Futures look to open modestly lower after Chevron warned about it's second quarter earnings. The Dow looks to be off 60 points, the NASDAQ 5, and the S&P 8. The Dow will likely test 8100 before the trading day is over.

* we still have record levels of debt to pay down; * we have no economic model in place in the U.S. to provide the jobs to pay off this debt (our GDP is 30% based on a financial sector, which was built on a house of derivative cards) and fully two thirds of our GDP is based on consumer spending, which is a bit circular in terms of helping to support further consumer spending; * we have an aging population of baby boomers that just lost 40-50% of their retirement and significant home value but they are going to...

hina is directing their mountain of reserves away from acquired mining firms and toward managed hedge funds. This is a new direction for Beijing, clearly in response to the refusal by Rio Tinto to permit a $19 billion stake from the Chinese aluminum giant Chinalco. They were frustrated and angered by the other refusal with the failed Unocal dea in 2005. Clearly, whether stated openly or not, the Chinese are thwarted by USGovt and UKGovt hidden leaders from investing in strategic firms. From their point of view, tarnished by ill feelings, their money is good for credit supply but not...

US stocks dropped sharply on Monday as commodity prices weakened and investors worried about the pace of economic recovery. Commodity stocks surged during the first four sessions of last week, as the price of oil rose and the dollar dropped amid rising fears of inflation. EDITOR’S CHOICE Overview: Fears for financial system cut risk appetite - Jun-15 SGX mulls OTC derivatives clearing - Jun-15 China doubts weigh on commodities prices - Jun-15 Dollar invigorated by Russian remarks - Jun-15 AstraZeneca lifted but Footsie dips steeply - Jun-15 ECB writedown alert knocks banks - Jun-15 However, they fell back on Friday...

Commodities staged a broad retreat on Monday, with oil dipping below $70 a barrel, as a stronger dollar and cautious comments from Chinese premier Wen Jiabao over the durability of his country’s economic recovery weighed on prices. Mr Wen’s suggestion that the drop off in foreign demand for Chinese goods could hamper the country’s economic growth knocked the faith of investors convinced that a sharp upturn in Chinese demand would reinvigorate the commodities markets. EDITOR’S CHOICE Aluminium defies laws of supply and demand - Jun-15 Video: Javier Blas on the doubling of the oil price - Jun-12 Lex: Oil price...

May 29, 2009 "Hussein will Make Jimmy Carter look like E.F. Hutton" (That of course is not a positive statement toward Carter but rather just how horrendous the results of Obama's prodigality will be.) as MrArbitrage explains...

Euro Pacific Capital or Puplava Securities

China on buying spreeJohn Garnaut, Beijing May 14, 2009 CHINA has shifted from merely the fastest-growing consumer to the biggest buyer by far of Australia’s key metals since the start of the financial crisis. China set import records in April for copper, aluminium, zinc, nickel and iron ore, in each case beating the previous record, set in March. The unprecedented Chinese buying spree, at a time when the rest of the world is shutting down, has caused metals analysts to dust off the belief that the Chinese economy can grow strongly without help from the United States. "Decoupling is alive...

Kudos to Dr. Faber for his continued insightful education to the investment community and the public at large. Each video is about nine minutes long and discusses inflation, particular market opportunities such as mining, real estate and short opinions about President Bush/President Obama.

Commodities to return: Rogers ‘The world’s food reserves are [low,] so higher prices will occur.’ April 21, 2009 Jim Rogers The global commodities market is about to make a comeback after years of price declines, which have devastated the food and metal markets around the world, according to billionaire American investor Jim Rogers. Rogers, in an e-mail interview with the JoongAng Ilbo from Singapore, where he has recently moved to teach his children Chinese, stressed now is time for investors to return to commodities, and warned them to stay away from U.S. currency. He emphasized that some of the world’s...