Commodities

Govt statistics say no inflation?

by Henry Becker 03.02.2011
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US Government stats show CPI up 1.6% from January 2010 to January 2011.  What?  One only has to read the FT or WSJ daily to see the cost of commodities rising to multi-decade highs.  We all must keep in mind that the true definition of inflation (as it relates to the economy) is the expansion [...]

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Ozzy Ozzy Ozzy Oi Oi Oi

by Henry Becker 08.31.2009
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You remember the cheer for the Australian athletes from the Sydney Olympics.  There are certainly some cheers going up for the Australian stock market.  Not only is the Australian stock market turning in solid performance take a look at the currency. Oh did I mention that the Australian economy is the only advanced economy to [...]

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Is the food crisis gone? Did you forget?

by Henry Becker 07.30.2009
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As I get older I find myself saying I remember when quite often. I remember when the headlines of the paper were splashed with “Food Crisis.” Oh, wait that was last year. Did it go away or was the food crisis mopped up by the other crises? Believe me it is still lurking out there [...]

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Playing the mining merger mania with ETFs

by Henry Becker 07.03.2009
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Many of the metal commodities have been enjoying a nice rebound thanks to renewed faith that China will continue to snap up vast amounts of natural resources.  According to the Economist.com, another factor lately has been the merger deal making. In late June Xstrata and Anglo American proposed a merger.  If completed this would produce [...]

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Can anything break Aluminum?

by Henry Becker 06.18.2009
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Aluminum has been experiencing quite a rally under puzzling circumstances.  Like most commodities aluminum has taken it on the chin in the last year.  But, in the last three months the performance of the ETN that tracks aluminum, the iPath Aluminum ETN (ticker JJU), is up over 17%.  The puzzling part is that some say [...]

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