Friday, March 12, 2010
Oil prices are on the rise again as the International Energy Agency is the latest forecaster to increase their expectations for China oil demand. Yet the IEA went far beyond just increasing demand expectations for China they said that the demand growth that we have seen so far is astonishing.  The IEA [...]

Friday, March 12,  2010
Chinese consumer confidence rose in February (the things we watch these days!), however Chinese stocks were lower overnight on worries that the government may move more firmly to contain inflation.  A research report from Citibank said that the Chinese may need to bail out banks that made loans to local Chinese governments.  [...]

Thursday, March 11, 2010
Overnight there was a lot of data showing that the Chinese economy is running hot – high inflation and retail sales.  PBOC Governor Zhou and a representative from the Ministry of Commerce both said that inflation will not be a problem this yes.  What do they know that we don’t?  It was [...]

Thursday, March 11, 2010
HOT! HOT! HOT! Inflation in China may be getting too hot to handle! Don’t touch or you could get burned. Could emerging China bubbles turn the commodities bull market into rubble? China’s inflation rate for consumer prices came out at a much hotter than expected 2.7 percent. That was sizzling compared to [...]

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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OVERNIGHT/EARLY MORNING DEVELOPMENTS

The market features in overnight/early morning trading today are firmer crude oil and gold futures prices.
JIM’S MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY *
Most agricultural commodity futures markets have price “seasonality,” whereby prices tend to trend higher or lower at certain times of the year. The seasonality in ag [...]

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
It looks like the API is playing catch up to the Department of Energy. A massive crude build according to the American Petroleum Institute, along with big product draws is going to keep the oil market on edge.
The API released another shocker when they said that US oil inventories increased by an [...]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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OVERNIGHT/EARLY MORNING DEVELOPMENTS
The market feature in overnight/early morning trading today is a stronger U.S. dollar index and lower crude oil and gold futures prices.
JIM’S MARKET THOUGHT OF THE DAY *
Crude oil prices are under selling pressure today, after having pushed above $82.00 a barrel on Monday. While no near-term [...]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Oil prices are under a bit of pressure to start the day as attention turns again to the forex markets. Comments from China about their currency and their foreign exchange reserves are capturing the attention of traders across the commodity spectrum. Is it possible that the Chinese are on the verge of [...]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Yesterday’s lackluster session in the US carried through to muted trading in Asia overnight. Chinese stocks saw small gains on some decent earnings reports, but Chinese traders are waiting for a number of economic releases due Thursday. European stocks were lower on concerns over the banking system. Fitch made [...]

Monday, March 8, 2010
U.S. equity markets are expected to open better this morning due to a pick-up in demand for higher yielding assets. Investors are also feeling more confident in the long side following last Friday’s better than expected Non-Farm Payrolls Report. The lack of fresh major economic news until at least Thursday could keep [...]

Monday, March 8, 2010
There wasn’t much news overnight, and the beginning of the week will be light on economic releases.  There were lots of Chinese officials speaking last night, but not necessarily much to trade off today.  PBOC Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said that the Yuan / Dollar peg is a temporary measure in response to [...]