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Silver Black Swan If Rampant Speculation Is Not Reigned In Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011 Apr 23, 2011 - 11:49 AM By: Dian L Chu If you think the crude oil market has gone totally out of control in the past month or so, observe the Silver. The Silver market has basically gone parabolic the week of April 17, going from $41.75 on April 15th to $46.69 on April 21st--a 12% move in 5 trading days, topping off the move with a 5% move on Thursday (See Chart). As Silver is a thinly traded market, one thing the CME...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Gold futures hit the psychological mark of $1,500 an ounce on Tuesday, shaking off early weakness as the dollar sunk further. Gold for June delivery GCM11 +0.31% wavered between small gains and losses earlier, but recently added $6.40, or 0.5%, to trade at $1,499.30 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. It earlier traded as high as $1,500, according to CME, an intraday record for the metal.

Gold And Silver Fall As Goldman Says "Sell Commodities" Commodities / Gold and Silver 2011 Apr 12, 2011 - 09:04 AM By: Adrian Ash THE PRICE OF physical gold slipped to a 3-session low in London trade on Tuesday, bouncing higher from $1455 per ounce – 1.5% below yesterday's new Dollar high – as world stock markets fell and major-economy government bond prices rose. Commodity markets fell after the International Energy Agency said crude oil at "$100-plus...will prove incompatible with...economic recovery" and weaker than expected UK inflation data followed the International Monetary Fund's newly downgraded global growth forecasts. "Not only...

With full support from the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve continues to weaken the dollar in order to "stimulate" the economy. Such exercises never create sustainable growth, but they sure are disruptive. One destructive result is that capital is misdirected because of false price signals. When the dollar is debased, commodity prices rise and speculation increases. Thus, it's impossible to know what the real supply/demand price is of a commodity or an asset--primarily land--related to the commodity. We see this harmful phenomenon playing out in farmland prices, which went up 12% last year, while doubling over the past decade. Prior...

$41! Joe Weisenthal Apr. 10, 2011, 7:47 PM | It just keeps going and going. Silver breaks $41.

The Dollar Is Getting Crushed As Oil Hits $111, Gold Hits $1470, Silver Hits $40, And Euro Hits $1.44 Joe Weisenthal Apr. 8, 2011, 5:02 AM It's not too surprising, since we're seeing one of these classically "risk on" type of days that have defined this whole rally, but the dollar is getting killed against everything. Gold is at $1470. Silver, as mentioned, has finally breached, the $40 level. The euro -- which just saw one of its members beg for a bailout -- is up to $1.44. And oil is at $111.

STOCKS FLAT, BUT GOLD SURGES: Here's What You Need To Know Gregory White Apr. 5, 2011, 4:00 PMImage: gomattolson on flickr Stocks ended the day roughly flat, but gold surged on the belief the economy was slowing and the Fed would take action. First, the scoreboard: Dow down 0.05% NASDAQ up 0.07% S&P 500 down 0.02% Now, the headlines: * Overnight in Asia, Chinese markets were closed, and the Nikkei was down over 1% on concerns over the fate the Fukushima facilities. Water polluted with radioactivity continues to flow into the ocean there. * The Middle East was mostly quiet...

CORN!! Joe Weisenthal Mar. 31, 2011, 8:09 PM Our CHART OF THE DAY showed the huge surge in corn following the USDA crop report. But that was just the first act. Corn futures were limit up, and couldn't go any higher. Well the market is open again, and corn is exploding higher again. Check out the last day in corn-ville and now the three different levels it's hit today. Image: CME

If You Really Believe In That Whole "Dr. Copper" Thing... Joe Weisenthal Mar. 30, 2011, 1:47 PM Copper is seen frequently as a great predictor of economic health, but a lot of the time it moves in line with the overall market, and thus its use as a barometer is of limited use. Not so lately. While the market has come back nicely, copper continues to look very ugly, and is markedly bucking the uptrend today. Believe in the whole "Dr. Copper" thing? Now's your chance to put your money where your moth is. Here's copper going back a few...

HOWARD DAVIDOWITZ: We're At The Edge Of A Dollar Crisis, The DOW Could Fall 6,000 Points Peter Gorenstein Mar. 25, 2011, 3:46 PM There's a distinct possibility the U.S. stock market could plunge as much as 6,000 points if the U.S. continues to rack up record amounts of debt, causing the dollar to lose its reserve currency status, says Daily Ticker favorite Howard Davidowitz. (See video below)(Click to the site to see the video) "The dollar has never been at greater risk," he tells Henry in the accompanying clip. Davidowitz is confident that if Washington doesn't cool its spending habits,...

Now that commodities (NYSE:DBC) are in focus, I reached out to my friend Jim Rogers to get his insights into where the commodities rally is headed. As usual, Jim had some great nuggets of wisdom: Damien Hoffman: Jim, what’s going on with food commodities (NYSE:DBA)? Jim Rogers: I’ve been trying to explain to people for a long time what’s going on, but for some reason nobody listens. Normally at this stage of the commodity bull market you would expect new capacity to be coming on stream. The problem of course is that in 2008 and 2009 everybody got hit. So,...

Friedrich Hayek's A Tiger by the Tail: The Keynesian Legacy of Inflation was published in 1978. It seems an appropriate description of what Quantitative Easing (QE) has produced. We are far along on a journey that cannot be stopped without enormous damage. Quantitative Easing is a euphemism for money creation. Money creation is, by definition, inflation. Eventually inflation produces higher commodity and other prices. Inflation can be created by other Fed policies besides QE. However, for purposes of this article, QE will be dealt with as if it is the primary cause (which it has been recently). According to Chairman...

DOW OFF OVER 170, EVERYTHING GETTING CRUSHED Joe Weisenthal Mar. 10, 2011, 9:38 AM There she goes. Everything is getting crushed. The Dow is off over 170. Commodities hammered across the board. The NASDAQ is off 1.7%. Only Green Mountain Coffee Roasters appears to be up. Oil is below $103. Even silver is tanking!

Is The U.S. Mint Going To Change The Metal Content Of The Nickel?Wednesday, March 9, 2011Robert Wenzel The current composition of the U.S. nickel is 25% nickel and 75% copper. It currently costs roughly 7 cents worth of this metal combination to make a nickel. Not a very profitable operation for the U.S. Mint. This may be change. The United States Mint announced on Monday that it is requesting public comment from all interested persons on factors to be considered in conducting research for alternative metallic coinage materials for the production of all circulating coins. According to the Mint: These...

Richard Russell Calls Buffett Ignorant, And Says Gold Is On Its Way To $6,000 Gus Lubin Mar. 7, 2011, 7:11 AM With gold breaking to record highs, Dow theorist Richard Russell takes on the world's most famous gold bear: When investment "geniuses" like Warren Buffet displays his ignorance by denouncing gold, it adds little to his legacy. (Warren's dad, Howard supported the gold standard). Warren Buffett's problem is that he only understands balance sheets and earnings. The value of a Picasso or a gem diamond or a bar of gold is outside Buffett's understanding. Which is sad, because Buffett's lack...

The world’s largest commodities trading firm, Glencore International, which was founded by Marc Rich (He is no longer affiliated), is considering a massive IPO. CNBC's Kate Kelly is reporting that Glencore is signaling to bankers that it expects to issue at least $7 billion in stock as part of an initial public offering to launch as early as April. Glencore is a heavy trader in oil, gas, wheat, corn, aluminum, nickel, and just about every other raw commodity you can think of. These guys are as shrewd as you can get. If they want to go public at this point,...

Even as Crude continues its strength in light of Gaddafi's filibuster that may soon dethrone's Bernie Sanders record-setting speech, other commodities are not sharing oil's enthusiasm. In fact, the Ag board is a bloodbath, after wheat, corn and soybeans have all traded limit down, on what are rapidly becoming pervasive margin liquidations. Perhaps the fact that the market forgot that it can go down and is experiencing its biggest drop since November, is forcing many specs to unwind huge margin positions (remember that margin levels on the NYSE are the highest since Lehman), causing a rout in virtually every risk...

It has been a long wait for “peak oilers,” whose passionate belief is that the world will run out of oil in coming years, sending prices through the roof. This splinter religion came into being in 1956 when M. King Hubbert produced some simple supply/demand charts showing that US reserves of Texas tea would dry up by 1965-70, forcing a heavy reliance on imports with which we have become all too familiar. This was later expanded globally, implying that Western civilization would come to a grinding halt. It all seemed very prescient, when in 1973 OPEC raised prices from $3/barrel...

Is this one of those "who could have possibly seen it coming" moments? As events in Libya overnight spiralled out of control, with dozens if not hundreds killed, the parliament buildng in Tripoli on fire, and output at one of the country's oil fields reported to have been stopped by a workers' strike, BP has said it will soon begin evacuating some of its personnel from the 9th largest producer of oil. And just to complete the total chaos, Iran warships are now going to pass the Suez on Tuesday instead of today, to the full glory of a fully...

Why You Need To Own America's Last Honest Currency, Now Robert WenzelFeburary 18, 2011 I have been writing about the great investment opportunity in nickels for some time. Nickels are an inflation hedge. Nickels are a deflation hedge. And you can buy them at a discount to their metal value. What's not to like? Gary Gibson does a great job of explaining the dynamics of the nickel: Every single circulating nickel still has 3.75 grams worth of copper each…along with 1.25 grams of nickel. Copper is currently about $4.46/lb. Nickel is currently about $12.97/lb. So if you do the math,...