By SIMON CONSTABLE
Investors in commodities funds that hold futures contracts will hear or read the words contango and backwardation. The terms are apt to confuse even those with some Wall Street experience, but understanding them is vital for investors in commodities. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Investors would be ill-advised to make financial bets that the price of gold will fall, according to a recent video report from commodities consulting firm CPM Group.
The video, hosted by Jeff Christian, founder, and managing partner of the company, notes that anyone with an outlook longer than a couple of weeks should be long. In other words, investors should bet on higher prices for the yellow metal. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
When Germany’s economy appeared to be on a pandemic-pushed brink earlier this year, its government gave companies cash to keep employees on the payroll. Now, with the virus looking less threatening, some thought the helping hand might be removed. That wasn’t quite what happened. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Investors are poised to pump an additional $2-3 trillion money into the gold market in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, experts say.
That could mean a surge in the price of gold, such as that held in the SPDR Gold Shares exchange-traded fund, could surge by at least 30%.
Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Two different diseases on two different continents are set to leave the world without enough pigs to fulfill the demand for pork and other related meats. That, in turn, should cause a rally in the price of lean hogs over the next few weeks. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Investors have gone bonkers for gold lately, and some see the bull run continuing.
Those who invested in bullion, such as the metal held by the SPDR Gold Shares GLD exchange-traded fund, have done well. But those who picked mining companies, especially the smaller ones, did even better. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
If anyone is looking for bad economic news these days, it’s not too hard to find. In the United States and Europe, gross domestic product numbers this past quarter were stunningly bad, perhaps none more than the 20% or so fall the United Kingdom is expected to report this week.
But that was last quarter. According to some little-noticed results, the all-too-critical manufacturing sector appears to have turned the corner. During July the factory sector grew in the US and in all three of Europe’s largest economies. Indeed, under one well-followed metric, the US, the UK, Germany, and France show that all four countries are now in “expansion” territory—after months of being in contraction from the pandemic earlier this year. “I am quite optimistic that this is for real,” says Yannick Binvel, Korn Ferry’s president of global industrial markets. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Gold investors should brace themselves for weeks more of market whiplash. In other words, if the recent volatility in the price of bullion has your stomach churning and your eyes twitching with anxiety, you’re gonna need to get used to it fast. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
After more than half a decade of record-busting price moves, the palladium market hit a bump in the road. The slowdown in the global economy, including the drop in car sales, is the problem.
“I would expect us to see sideways rangebound trade,” says Steve Dunn, head of exchange-traded funds at Aberdeen Standard, which runs the Aberdeen Standard Physical Palladium Shares ETF (PALL). Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Many investors are familiar with the VIX, or volatility index, that measures how much investors expect to see the S&P 500 index fluctuate.
But far fewer know even a little about a measure of volatility in economic growth called the Economic VIX Index, created by Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at investment-management and research firm Leuthold Group. The Economic VIX is important now because its history over the decades since World War II shows that stocks do best when economic volatility in the U.S. is at its lowest or its highest—and the pandemic is stoking economic volatility that Mr. Paulsen believes will be historic. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
So far this year, investors in gold and silver have made out like bandits, especially when you compare the returns of the world’s two best-known precious metals with those of stocks.
SPDR Gold Shares (GLD), an exchange-traded fund that tracks the price of bullion, and iShares Silver Trust (SLV), an ETF that tracks silver prices, are up 34% and 57%, respectively, so far this year. That compares to just a 4% gain for SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 stock index. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
The stock-market volatility in the first half of 2020 should have been a near-perfect period for “long-short” mutual funds and exchange-traded funds to make a killing.
Unfortunately, less than one in three such funds made money for investors during this tumultuous period. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Corn prices look set to rise over the next few weeks as extreme weather and agricultural pests put a dent in the harvest of the world’s two largest producers of the grain.
“Our estimate is that the corn price reaches $3.80 plus or minus 20 cents in the fall,” says Shawn Hackett, president of Boca Raton-based Hackett Financial Advisors.
In other words, corn prices could easily reach $4 a bushel, or about 24% higher than recent prices of around $3.22. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Investors sometimes talk about the “smile” of the U.S. dollar. What does it mean?
The dollar smile is a theory that says the U.S. currency tends to increase in value against other currencies when the U.S. economy is extremely weak or very strong. It goes up at either end of the spectrum, just like the smile on your face. Read more here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
A severe affliction is blighting some of the world's largest economies. It has resulted in a record-breaking drop in business efficiency, and in turn that is harming economic growth. Analysts don’t see any quick answers.
Of course, this may sound like the terrible fallout from the coronavirus outbreak that began to grip the world earlier this year. But it’s a different matter entirely, without any of the human suffering but still plenty of economic angst. It’s about worker productivity. Read more here.
