Oil is touching $107

Oil is touching $107 and gas prices are rising, yet I don't hear much complaining. On CNBC, Cramer even talked about the ameliorating impact of low natural gas prices, so that consumers stunned at the pump might be pleasantly surprised by their home heating bills.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

The Silent Creeping Up

No, I'm not talking about Apple, very loudly creeping up, then down and representing ever more SPX points. The creeping up is oil.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

Portugal, and Yields, and Iran . . .

Portugal, and yields, and Iran - oh my! None of these are new stories. Portugal is bigger than Greece - but we knew that. Moreover, we knew Portugal was in dire straits. We knew Germany was already hesitant to provide more assistance and would demand higher guarantees.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

All eyes should be on Iran

Last year I started writing about the divergent forces working on oil: global slowdown vs. geopolitical unrest. So far, geopolitical unrest has been winning.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

Natural Gas

Natural gas continues to hang out at its lows, and I'm liking it more and more. What's also interesting is that UNG, which is the ETF created to play natural gas continues to diverge from the commodity, so that even as the commodity stabilizes and even has a few up days, UNG continues to underperform. The above chart is the ratio of the natural gas index: UNG monthly since the inception of UNG in 2007.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

The real alternative energy

A long long time ago, there was a lot of talk about alternative energy, and then the government got involved, and the talk subsided, but it was always there, and there were prominent VC's who touted it, and then we all shifted our attention to Europe - and now . . .Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

Oil and Ag

It's all in the timing. I recently spoke to a client about the recent divergence between oil and the agricultural space. I'm not a chart specialist, but I do like to reference the charts for a quick view of history. In this case, the spread between oil and ag indices looks pretty stretched. .Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

Another oil shock?

From a recent report by McKinsey:

It’s been a while since the world has been truly preoccupied with the threat of sustained high oil prices.

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Oil and energy

As the world's growth is being recognized for what it is, namely anemic if not outright negative, oil and the industrial commodities have come off a good 30+%.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

And over in this corner…

While the world looks at the euro dying a surprisingly slow death, I once again have to shift readers' focus.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

On the rout in energy

With an economic slowdown starting to get priced in, and deflationary pressures increasing, energy is lower.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

A Contrarian Take On Oil

60 million barrels sure sounds like a lot, so thank you world governments for releasing that into the system and alleviating consumers' burdens.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

Energy Revisited

Earlier this week, Dennis Gartman had a note out on the technicalities behind the failed OPEC meeting, where the votes were roughly split between countries willing and unwilling to boost production.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

World Growth is Slowing

World growth is slowing and that means that not all commodities are equal. Commodities have 2 opposing forces at play determining their prices. The first, is a complex, global, supply and demand equilibrium.Viewing the remainder of this article requires a Subscription

Silver – yes, I sold it too early

You wouldn’t believe the vehemence of the responses I’ve received for selling silver last week, and the chides so far this week. Sure, I sold silver and bought GDX and XLU in its stead and missed out on a few percentages of relative performance. The comments have only served to solidify my resolve – I am not a momentum investor and I fully recognize that I might miss out on the explosive parabolic move that might come. On the other hand, I’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that I was buying undervalued assets and not worried about being the last one out or trying to time the final move. In the meantime, no one is mentioning the fact that our positions in energy have done fabulously, and the rest of the precious metals are following silver up (although maybe not at the same blistering pace). I can only imagine what will happen when we rotate out of those.

Relevant ETFs: SLV, GLD, GDX, XLU, PALL, PPLT, FCG, KOL, NLR