On June 20, 2012, the Federal Reserve had their big meeting of the FMOC (Federal Open Market Committee). The Markets had been pricing in a new round of QE3 where the Fed was going to start again buying Treasuries directly in order to inject liquidity into the markets. The markets ran up in anticipation;  as [...]

Commodities have been much more volatile of late, especially last week with with copper closing last Friday at a six-month low on expectations of weak Chinese economic growth. It has since had a bounce, but it was an ever so small bounce. Last week, China surprised the markets (as it often likes to do) with [...]

  Hey, “It’s tough out there !” Yes, indeed.  Let’s see where we are: What will happen with interest rates?  Is there a bond bubble ? What is the future impact from Europe ? Will emerging markets continue to grow and support commodity markets? Will there be a QEIII ? What will be the impact [...]

Rises in both capital and operating costs have become a growing problem for the mining industry, which faces ever higher price tags for everything from skilled labor to power, maintenance and even explosives and prefabricated buildings. The weakening US dollar of late hasn’t helped much either as many report their earnings in US funds. I [...]

According to an report in The Washington Post on Monday, the National Association for Business Economics said that forecasters have raised their expectations for employment, new home construction and business spending this year. But they held on to their average prediction that U.S. GDP will grow at a rate of 2.4%, a slight improvement from [...]

If you’ve been paying attention to markets lately, you’ve probably noticed the massive run up commodities have had of late. This is especially apparent in gold and oil as they have by far experienced the largest gains of all commodity sectors. This is all thanks to the central banks of the works and their drive [...]

It is often thought that copper is the one commodity that truly reacts to and reflects investor sentiment when it comes to the health of the global economy. If fact, many traders and investors believe that copper prices are the driving force behind global economic growth. Unlike gold, which is really just a nice shiny [...]

Silver has always been considered golds poor cousin. The saying went that if you can not afford gold you buy silver. If you can’t afford that nice gold necklace for your girlfriend, you buy here the silver one that only costs you a fraction of the price. That idea may be changing, especially for precious [...]

I have always been interested in the way commodity prices move over times. I’m not a day trader, but I try to understand commodity prices becuase it gives me a good understanding; I believe, of the macro economic and global economic picture. I have stated in my earlier article that 2012 will see a shift [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled “Equilibrium – A Crazy Idea ?”  The idea being of course that amidst all the daily blazing news about European debt, potential contagion, and general mayhem, there are actually underlying economies that continue to produce and consume “things” – and that slow to no growth [...]