Natural gas is combustible as producers extract the energy commodity from the earth’s crust. The energy commodity’s price action has been equally volatile since the CME’s NYMEX division rolled out futures contracts over three decades ago in 1990. Natural gas probes above the $5 level- a nearly eight-year high Heat and storms have been bullish LNG demand is...
As September began last week, the markets are nervous. Stocks have seen some pretty awful seasonal price action in September and October. Crashes occurred in 1929, 1987, and 2008 in October. Commodities are highly seasonal markets. Some commodities typically reach seasonal highs and lows during various months of the year. Futures prices ordinarily reflect...
This week is the beginning of September 2021, the twentieth anniversary of the horrendous terrorist 9/11 attacks on the United States. Soon after, the US began military operations in Afghanistan, a hotbed of harboring terrorists under the Taliban. It took twenty years, four US Presidents, trillions in military expenses, and many lives to achieve the goal of...
In early July 2021, nearby NYMEX crude oil futures rose to the highest price since 2014 after rising to a high of $76.98 per barrel. The price eclipsed the October 2018 $76.90 high by only eight cents. The crude oil futures market ran out of upside steam at the early July high and has made lower highs over the past seven weeks. At around the $62 per barrel level...
Rodney Dangerfield was one of my all-time favorite comedians. He was a master at the one-liner, and while his catchphrase was “I don’t get no respect,” he got plenty. Rodney passed in 2004, but his legacy lives on in films. His role as Thornton Melon in the 1986 comedy classic Back to School continues to have a cult following. As he sat in an economics class,...
Last week, in an interview on CNBC, legendary trader and investor Stanley Druckenmiller sounded an alarm. He told reporters on the financial news network, “I can’t find any period in history where monetary and fiscal policy were this out of step with the economic circumstances, not one…I will be surprised if we’re not out of the stock market by the end of the...
The Evolution of the Global Financial Revolution Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The question has its root in ancient Greece, where philosophers used it as an analogy to opine on cause and effect. Aristotle, writing in the fourth century BCE, addressed the question of origin versus first cause as an infinite sequence, with no actual source. The paradox...
Gold was sitting around the $1825 on Friday, July 16. Silver was over $26, platinum was near the $1140 level, and palladium was around $2700 per ounce. All four of the precious metals that trade on the COMEX and NYMEX divisions of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have been trending higher over the past years. Gold and palladium reached all-time highs over the past...
My phone constantly rings with solicitations for solar energy, extending the automobile warranty for cars I got rid of years ago, and with dire warnings that charges are pending against me from social security, the IRS, or other agencies. Some are annoying, but many are scams. A few years ago, I opened an email that locked my entire computer system with a...
After trading at the highest level since 2002 during the risk-off period when COVID-19 spread worldwide like a wildfire, the US dollar index fell, making lower highs and lower lows from March 2020 through January 2021. The index fell from 103.96 to a low of 89.165, a 14.2% decline in the index that measures the dollar against other world reserve currencies. ...
Last week, the commodities sector experienced more than a speed bump after an extended period of price appreciation. As July soybeans roll to the next active month and the new crop November contract in the futures market, the price became a falling knife before recovering on Friday, June 18. Beans tank They were not the only commodities A Fed hint made its...
The bond market is the primary capital-raising marketplace. Market participants issue new debt or buy and sell debt securities in the secondary market. Bonds, notes, and bills are tools for public and private expenditures. Since the US is the world’s leading economy, the market for US government bonds is massive. The long-bond or 30-Year Treasury is a barometer...
The tech-heavy NASDAQ 100 E-Mini futures contract (NQ) hit a high of 4,884 in March 2000, nearly four years after Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said that there was “irrational exuberance” in the internet stocks. By October 2002, the index fell to 797.50 as the tech sector bubble burst. The best-performing index in 2020 The pandemic accelerated technology’s...
Bull and bear markets can rise or fall to levels that even the most respected analysts believe are illogical, unreasonable, and irrational. On April 20, 2020, we witnessed an irrational day where the price of NYMEX crude oil not only dropped below zero for the first time but also fell to a low of negative $40.32 per barrel. NYMEX WTI is landlocked petroleum. The...
Each event lifted Bitcoin to new highs Next up- Micro futures Expanding the addressable market through lower margin requirements- Real Estate is about location; other markets are all about liquidity The market cap is still low and has room to rise The next event will be the ETFs- It could take time I remember a commercial that aired in New York for...
A late February peak runs out of steam and makes a comeback LME and COMEX stocks rise Inventories can be a mirage Goldman Sachs makes a bullish call- Three reasons for higher copper prices Heading for new high- Copper could go parabolic In March 2020, nearby COMEX copper futures traded to the lowest price since June 2016, when it reached a bottom at...
Corn probes above $6 for the first time since 2013 Farmers will favor beans Keep an eye on gasoline and ethanol prices Corn continues to pop going into the planting and growing seasons- It’s all about the weather Backwardation as the market has high hopes for 2021 output In late April 2020, the corn price fell to its lowest level since 2008 when the...
Silver sits at the $25 Level An eleven-year low and seven-year high in 2020, A higher high in Q1 2021 Liquidity, stimulus, and US energy policy support silver China's digital currency is another bullish factor Expect the unexpected in the silver market Silver can be the most volatile of the precious metals that trade on the COMEX and NYMEX divisions...