Here is a statement for discussion. "The only change of trend between the major asset classes appears to be in the US treasury market". We say this as the equity, commodity, real estate, and currency markets are all well within their respective trends that are now some 10 months old.

From our viewpoint, this is going to be a rather telling week for the bond market with record auctions in store for the market – so much for living within one’s means! Anyway that is a story for another day. To us, lending money to the US Government for some 4.4% return p.a. over 30 years, seems like .. well.. indescribable really.

Below we provide our trading range charts of ten popular commodities. The green shading represents between two standard deviations above and below the commodity's 50-day moving average. As shown, oil has been trading at the top of its trading range for a few weeks now, and its uptrend remains intact. Natural gas has also made a nice move over the past couple of months, but it has struggled to make the next leg up over the past few weeks.

As investors know, gold is currently the commodity of the day, and as shown in its chart, it is currently trading right at overbought territory. Silver and platinum have rallied along with gold, but they don't quite have the relationship with the dollar that gold has, so investors haven't plowed into them as much. Corn, wheat, orange juice, and coffee have also all done well recently.

As U.S. equity markets have soared in recent months, the dollar has steadily declined against most of its major rivals, recently falling below the key $1.50 level against the euro for the first time since August of last year. This extended fall has investors wondering if the dollar’s decline reflects temporary volatility, or a long-term trend.

Despite the negative connotation, a less valuable currency may not be a negative development for the U.S. economy. But it has nevertheless become a concern for many investors who have begun to seek out ways to hedge against a further decline. Not surprisingly, there are a number of ETFs that offer a way to profit from a falling dollar. Today, we take a look at one of these options: exchange-traded commodity products.

ETFs have been overshadowing their close relative, the ETN. Investors could be missing out on this nifty alternative investment vehicle.

At the end of September, U.S.-listed ETNs held $6.9 billion in assets, compared with the $697 billion held in ETFs, writes Matt Hougan for IndexUniverse.

If you haven’t heard of E-TRACS, you aren’t the only one. This family of exchange-traded products has gone nowhere. Every product they offer, except one, is on my Deathwatch list. Their products have meager assets and almost no trading volume, but the sponsors keep on plugging along. It’s impressive, in a way.

Now E-TRACS has launched yet another potentially doomed product: UBS E-TRACS DJ-UBS Commodity Index Total Return ETN (DJCI) began trading on October 29, 2009. For all practical purposes, there is nothing to distinguish DJCI from several other ETFs and ETNs that track similar broad commodity indexes. If ever there were a “Me Too” product, this is it. The only possible reason I can see to create this fund is that regulators are trying to cap the size of commodity-based exchange-traded securities. E-TRACS may think they will get some spillover buying from investors who are locked out of better-known funds.

Operating under the elixir of ultra-low interest rates, and flush with trillions of fiat currency at their disposal, courtesy of the world’s top-20 central banks, hedge funds and banking Oligarchs are once again making risky and daring bets in commodities, emerging markets, junk bonds, and blue-chip stocks, defying gravity with trades that would have been un-thinkable just six-months ago.

UBS, under its E-TRACS brand, launched a new exchange-traded note (ETN) yesterday that offers exposure to the DJ-UBS Commodity Index Total Return. This benchmark is designed to provide diversified commodity exposure based on the economic significance of each commodity. The index measures the collateralized returns on a basket of 19 commodity futures contracts representing energy, precious metals, industrial metals, grains, soft commodities, and livestock sectors. The largest commodity allocation is to oil and gas, including crude oil (13.8%), natural gas (11.8%), gasoline (3.7%), and heating oil (3.6%).

Other significant weightings include gold (7.9%), soybeans (7.6%), and the industrial metals – copper at 7.3% and aluminum at 7.0%. The ETN which trades under the symbol DJCI, has an expense ratio of 0.50%, and will rebalance yearly in order to make sure that no single commodity makes up more than 33% of the fund.

By Matt Hougan

Exchange-traded notes are like the forgotten stepchildren of the ETF industry: unloved and overlooked. Investors (particularly taxable investors) are missing out.

Commodity prices and the ETFs that follow them have seen a dramatic jump this year, but the growth in prices are tapering off. Are commodities no longer in high demand or are we just on pause?

The prices of commodities surged from March to June, but growth has slowed since then, remarks Harvey Jones for The Motley Fool. For the long-term, investment guru Jim Rogers thinks the current commodities bull market will run till 2022.

By Chris Vermeulen

Dow Jones Commodity Index Fund – This index tracks the entire commodity market as a whole. Over the past two years we have seen commodities drop in value substantially. The good news is that we could be seeing prices rise going forward from here.

Below we provide charts of ten major commodities. In each chart, the light green shading represents two standard deviations above and below the sector's 50-day moving average. As we all know, gold is all the rage right now and oil has taken a back seat. As shown in the chart of oil below, it has basically gone nowhere over the last two months. It is currently trading right in the middle of its trading range.

Natural gas, on the other hand, has made a significant move higher and broken its long-term downtrend. With gold charging higher, silver and platinum have also moved up, but they haven't broken to new rally highs yet. This is a key signal that the gold move is pretty much based solely on the dollar's move lower.

By Brad Zigler

Index investors used to be easy to spot. They once wore "long-only" signs around their necks. Recently, though, indexes of all sorts have been created that aren't limited to simple buy-and-hold methodologies. We now have "strategy indexes" that allow for short, long and/or flat positions in a portfolio.

By Lara Crigger

Last Wednesday, Deutsche Bank (DB) announced plans to restructure its commodities ETFs, the PowerShares DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund (DBC) and PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA).

Below we provide our trading range charts of ten major commodities. The green shading represents two standard deviations above and below the commodity's 50-day moving average, and moves above or below this range are considered overbought or oversold.

As oil has moved to the bottom of its trading range in recent weeks, natural gas has finally moved to the top of its range. Natural gas also just broke above its one-year downtrend line, and now traders will focus on resistance that was made at its highs earlier this year.

Several days ago, I addressed an unsettling “arrangement” between 3 asset classes… gold, treasuries and U.S. stocks. Uncharacteristically, they’ve been moving in the same general direction since mid-June.

Well, the plot is thickening.

We are in the midst of a dollar-caused rally in the market. This may be strange, considering the dollar is down about 10% against a basket of the top currencies over the last 3 months, but it is true. The weakening dollar is helping to sustain this rally by pumping up a lot of the energy and metals companies out there that will profit as our currency continues to weaken. Silver is up about 45% since the start of the year with much more room to grow. Oil is up about 30% over the last 100 days, and there is a lot more upside there as well.

Is a declining dollar good for the long term? Of course not. It is always the sign of inflation pressures, a weakened consumer, and global economic headwinds. What other country in the world could say that the day after their debt ceiling was raised to $12 trillion, their stock market actually went up?

With healthcare legislation on the immediate horizon, near 20% unofficial unemployment, and consumer savings rates at historic highs, we will be in for a very bumpy ride in the 4th Quarter.

Last Thursday we noted that oil was trading at a key inflection point where it would either fail at or break above resistance. As shown below, oil has broken above this inflection point in the last two days (through Monday's close), but it has hardly been a move worth getting excited over. With oil and the stock market trading so closely together in recent months, the ability for oil to forcefully break out will most likely depend on which way stocks move in the next week or so.

Dow Jones & Co. has begun searching for potential buyers of its stock market indexing unit, which includes the widely-reported Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The unit of Dow Jones, which publishes the Wall Street Journal and was purchased by News Corporation (NWS) in late 2007, creates and licenses indexes for use by ETFs, mutual funds, and other products.

Managed futures has been long recognized to be an excellent portfolio diversifier.

However, long only commodity investment is not good enough. For example, in this 2008-2009 period, commodity ETFs such as DBC, GSG based on broad based commodity indexes and most of ETFs based on narrow commodity industry indexes such as DBA, DBE, DBB did not do well.