METALS ARE UP AGAIN IN OVERNIGHT TRADING: Gold gets all the attention, but Platinum and Palladium are outperforming those metals due to Plat & Pall production outages and now shortages. See list and analysis below, and check the 24 hour LIVE charts at strategyupdate.com
PAL IS UNSTOPPABLE! VGZ has been a tippy-top performer, lately, on days that gold is up. Check it out! (10AM UPDATE: PAL was up nearly 10%, grossly outperforming other metal stocks, and the rest of the stock market -- before metal prices started going down in the 10 AM hour. When metals rise again, expect it to be led by PAL, which may rise 10%-12% at that time.
KRY: They released some news at 9:19am, right after pre-market trading closed. Hmmm. Let's see how this (good) news drives this $1.80 a share gold mining stock.
(Be aware of automatic profit taking by major hedge funds when gold hits record levels. But if the trend is up, it will only be a temporary dip. You can take your chances that we will see that dip, but read the analysis below.)
2/11/08 GOLD ALERT:
Platinum price hits record high amid S.Africa power crisis
Angloplat earnings fall, power cuts to hit output
Newmont predicts all major gold miners will see production decline
Newmont forecasts higher costs
Oil climbs $92 on Venezuela threat
U.S. light crude for March delivery rose as high as $92.71 a barrel in early trade, matching its recent January 30 peak, the highest point since January 15.
Platinum hits record high on supply concerns
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Platinum hit another record high on Monday on the back of lingering supply concerns in South Africa, which produces four-fifths of the world's metal. Spot platinum
Venezuela threatens to stop US oil sales over Exxon
CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez on Sunday threatened to stop sending oil to the United States unless it halted an "economic war" that he said included an Exxon Mobil lawsuit freezing $12 billion in Venezuelan assets.
Goldman Sachs boosts wheat price forecast
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has raised its outlook for Chicago wheat futures by 47 percent to $13.50 a bushel after the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut projected 2007/08 U.S. wheat ending stocks.
The Goldman Sachs three-month and six-month price forecast compares with CBOT March soft red winter wheat WH8 futures closing price on Friday of $10.93 a bushel, after prices again rose by their 30-cent daily limit.
Record high wheat prices were sparked on Friday by new world agriculture supply and demand estimates by the USDA, which cut projected U.S. wheat stocks at the end of the 2007/08 marketing year on May 31 to 272 million bushels from its estimate of 292 million bushels in January.
This is the lowest levels of stocks since 1947/48, Goldman Sachs said in its Commodities Watch report, issued on Friday.
Acute world wheat shortages, after crop problems in both the northern and southern hemispheres and strong export demand, have sparked wheat price rises on U.S. futures exchanges by the daily 30-cent ceiling for most of the past three weeks, causing the exchanges to raise the limit from February 12.
Reuters reports that Australia's Central Bank Warns of More Rate Rises: Australia's central bank bluntly warned on Monday that it would likely need to raise interest rates again to restrain inflation, even as it trimmed its outlook for economic growth.
The unusually explicit warning from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) lifted the local dollar above 90 U.S. cents while bills futures slid as the market priced in a greater risk of a further rate hike, perhaps as soon as March.
STOCK MARKET UPDATE: Experts are saying it's time to jump on the financial stocks, since they have been beat up so much. Batcomputer says, you will have a chance to buy the financial sector at lower prices than they are currently at. (And that's an understatement.) Batcomputer is very, very nervous that there will be a big bottom in the low 11,000's (or high 10,000's), before a big rally back to the 13,500 range. Look how the market has tanked in January, then again last week. But long term (2-3 years), you should be o.k. if you wanna take your chances on financials. Although the Batcomputer wouldn't. It's just not worth the risk since the dust hasn't settled yet. And we say there will be a lot more dust. Interested in gold in '08? See our update, including watchlist of picks. Wall Street updates throughout the day at strategyupdate.com.
2/11/08 Pre-Bell Update: Yahoo boardmembers to reject Microsoft's takeover bid feeling the offer is to low and wants $40 per share. (LOL!) Batcomputer says, "Watch CNET". (Let's watch and see what happens this week.)
Experts are saying it's time to jump on the financial stocks, since they have been beat up so much. Batcomputer says, you will have a chance to buy the financial sector at lower prices than they are currently at. (And that's an understatement.) Batcomputer is very, very nervous that there will be a big bottom in the low 11,000's (or high 10,000's), before a big rally back to the 13,500 range. Look how the market has tanked in January, then again last week. But long term (2-3 years), you should be o.k. if you wanna take your chances on financials. Although the Batcomputer wouldn't. It's just not worth the risk since the dust hasn't settled yet. And we say there will be a lot more dust. Interested in gold in '08? See our update, including watchlist of picks. Wall Street updates throughout the day at strategyupdate.com and do a Google alert for "strategyupdate.com" to receive blog reports.
IT GOLD ABOUT TO REALLY TAKE OFF?: Oil prices rising, inflation already rising (see commodity prices) and more Fed funds rate cuts expected...Gold miners are yet to catch up with gold's recent rise, proportionately. But of course gold itself is going to be safer than any one mining pick. It depends on what you are looking for in an investment. But although you always see gold and metals take some hard falls (especially at record high levels, that we are approaching again, as hedge funds take their automatic profits) -- if last week was any indication...gold is not only holding it's own in this volatile market...but could start to speed up it's gains, and reduce the sell offs this week.
Usually, I would be too nervous to buy metals after this big run-up this past week (because you can see some painful drops). But on Monday February 11, 2008...I think time will show today is about as good as you are going to do in the long run, when it comes to gold. (Unless you have the cajones to hang in there for one more "profit-taking dip" we usually see at these record levels. The last hedge fund sell off was at $836/oz. So you still have another $10 rise on gold before you have to worry about it.)
And the Batcomputer says that by that time, inflation fears, a weaker dollar, and higher oil prices may offset any major dips on it's way to $950-$1000. Gold is now the third currency and if the stock market runs into a "rough patch" over credit derivative/subprime/bond insurer crisis -- people will be pulling out of stocks -- and jumping into gold. (It would have been nicer to jump in at $800. But people always say, "Too late now" -- and then they look back and say, "Damn, I liked gold at $920!" (See Gold Update for list of miners and more on gold investing stategy.")
AND WE CALLED PAL ON FRIDAY: We predicted metals would be up led by Palladium. Sure enough, metals were up, led by Palladium. And our Palladium pick (PAL), closed at $5.60 -- up 12.45% for the day! PAL was at $3.59 on 1/23/08. (Better than gold!)
METAL STOCKS ARE STOCKS, NOT THE COMMODITY ITSELF: And since these are stocks, they sell off, too when the market takes a dive.. But long run, when/if the stock markets go REALLY south, due to economic problems, gold will rise without the DOW-based sell-offs. AND, as the DOW goes down...gold and gold miners stock will/do not go down as much as general stocks, so you still win. (That's the point!)
So in other words, on some of these down 200-300 point days, your gold miner may only drop 2%-3%, when everything else in the market is down 7%-9%. And this past week, dropping -123 point, followed by -370 points -- it closed Friday down another -63 points. While gold had it's best day all month. Read the writing on the wall, y'all!
PROFIT TAKING FEARS: With gold this high, assuming you will see profit taking drive the price down. What do you do when it looks as though it's only going up? I would buy it like crazy on Monday in pre-market hours if the Batcomputer is giving the "buy" sign at 7:00am EST on Monday 2/11/08. (However, there is a lot of volatility with the Euro and metals in overnight trading, so you may want to watch to see which way the wind blows before you buy right before a dip today.)
UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY AT STRATEGYUPDATE.COM. (Plus 24 hour LIVE gold, metals and euro charts.)
