Energy Hedge Fund Center

Gold prices are sitting on $1,650 an ounce support line and if prices manage to hold on to this level they can trend up toward $2,000 an ounce for 2012. The key level is the Sept. 26 low at $1,594. If this level is broken we are looking at a correction in gold prices toward ... Read More

Back in August, we discussed the precarious proclamation that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was shipping his country’s gold reserves home for safekeeping. On Friday, we learned Chavez’s chosen transportation method for “Operation Gold” was through the air after the first shipments arrived to much fanfare in Venezuela. Reuters* described the scene:[More...]

Hedge funds and large investors continue to scale back their long exposure to commodities as the economic outlook for 2012 worsens and threatens raw material demand. Commodity trading is also negatively impacted by banks’ tightened lending to funds.

Commodities are beating equities for a fifth consecutive year, reports Bloomberg, a sign that developing countries are sustaining the growth that drove up prices nearly fourfold in a decade. While most indexes have been doing poorly due to concerns of a global economic slowdown, the Standard & Poor’s GSCI Index of 24 commodities climbed 2% ... Read More

Societe Generale warned investors against betting on commodities in 2012 even as data showed speculators’ sentiment already faded, with their positioning on many crops among the most bearish in recent history. SocGen asset allocation specialists recommended investors take an underweight position on commodities, including agricultural ones, heading into 2012, warning of the threat to demand ... Read More

Commodities prices staged a surprising rally this week as investors opted to see the silver lining in the gathering economic clouds. Strong retail figures in the U.S. over Thanksgiving weekend and fresh optimism that politicians would find a way to stabilize the situation in the euro-zone helped underpin the rally as investors looked to consolidate ... Read More

Just looking at a new article from global consultants McKinsey about the state of world commodities and the outlook looks bleak, to say the least. “Our research shows that during the past eight years alone, (commodity prices) have undone the decline of the previous century, rising to levels not seen since the early 1900s,” according ... Read More

Speculators decreased wagers on rising commodity prices to the lowest since July 2009 amid concern that Europe’s inability to contain its debt crisis will crimp demand for raw materials as global growth slows. Money managers cut combined net-long positions across 18 U.S. futures and options by 25 percent to 562,508 contracts in the week ended ... Read More

It’s been a tough few months for companies that use derivatives to hedge their commodity costs. A collapse in industrial metal prices handed major paper losses to firms like Ford. The massive dislocation in crude oil benchmarks hit United Continental hard. And now, with deepening despair over the European economy and ever-present fears of a ... Read More

Global miner Rio Tinto warned on Monday that further cracks may be emerging in global commodities markets as the economies of Europe and the United States waver, with its customers increasingly cautious on the outlook. Still, the world’s second largest miner of iron ore and a large producer of copper, coal, aluminium and other industrial ... Read More