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ELEMENTS S&P Commodity Trends Indicator ETN

5/25/2013, 4:05 AM ET

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Monday, November 12, 2012, 9:00 AM Likely settling approximately nothing, the SEC finds ETPs which hold physical metal have no impact on the actual price of the commodity. The finding comes as the agency examines the possible effects of proposed physical copper ETFs from JPMorgan and BlackRock. Comment! [Commodities]
Monday, November 5, 2012, 2:20 PM If you want to invest in commodities, writes Josh Brown, do you buy the physical (through an ETF) or the producers? His preference is the physical as the producers can often be counted on to issue secondaries or grant massive stock options just at the time when a bull market makes things fun (sounds familiar to fans of gold miners). 1 Comment [Commodities]
Thursday, October 25, 2012, 11:04 AM Commodity investors will have interest in a comparison of the Rogers Commodity ETN (RJA) vs. the much more popular DB Agriculture ETF (DBA). RJA offers diversity, investing over a far wider range of contracts than DBA, which has 72% of its assets in just its top 6 holdings. Performance: Rogers dominates by 1400 basis points over 3 years, but DBA by about 700 basis points over 5 years. Comment! [Commodities, Quick Ideas]
Friday, September 21, 2012, 12:41 PM An outstanding set of charts (I, II, III) from Deutsche (h/t MicroFundy) tracks the S&P, CRB, and the dollar index before and after the Fed's (now 3) QE programs. If it's true - as the charts suggest - that the effect of the drug wears off with each successive application, stocks, commodities, and currencies may not have much more in gains ahead of them. 2 Comments [Global & FX]
Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 3:38 PM No longer trendy, commodities have fallen out of favor at several large public pension funds. The $36B Illinois Teachers' Retirement System scrapped its 4 year program, instead putting the money into areas better reflecting "conditions in the world economy." CalSTRS ($150B AUM) remains nominally committed, but at $150M, the amount in commodities is less than the fund's operating budget. 3 Comments [Commodities]
Monday, September 3, 2012, 9:35 AM In the case of commodities, what goes up must come down, suggests FT Alphaville's Neil Hume, who wonders what this up-and-away chart would have looked like without the threat of Iran and the fervor of gold bugs. 7 Comments [Commodities]
Tuesday, August 28, 2012, 5:06 PM Commodity prices have only begun to drop, writes Michael Pettis (not yet available on web), attributing nearly the entirety of increased demand over the past decade to "incredibly unbalanced growth" in China (now coming to an end). Recently, it's gotten even more unwholesome, with much of Chinese demand going to build mountains of inventory. Expect the country to soon become a net seller of a number of commodities. 1 Comment [Commodities, Global & FX]
Thursday, August 2, 2012, 7:28 AM BHP Billiton is set to postpone a $20B port expansion plan in Australia, according to a memo from the company's iron ore chief: The resources industry is "facing numerous challenges including substantial capital and operating cost escalation and decreasing commodity prices." Mining contractors in Perth have reportedly already started laying off workers. Comment! [Global & FX, Commodities]
Wednesday, August 1, 2012, 8:18 AM A revision to the mean type of guy for most of his career, Jeremy Grantham continues a Malthusian turn in his old age, warning of decades of food shortages (last year's warning focused on metals, but all of a sudden the world seems oversupplied with those). Being a breadbasket, the U.S. will not be affected too badly, but poorer importers will see trouble. 3 Comments [U.S. Economy, Global & FX, Commodities]
Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 12:10 PM Harvard is taking a shine to natural resources - particularly timber (WOOD, CUT) - maybe at the expense of private equity and hedge funds, according to the normally secretive endowment chief Jane Mendillo. Of distressed credit in Europe, she's interested, but notes it's the hot new investment area and will take a pass for now. Comment! [Commodities]
Monday, July 9, 2012, 10:42 AM A check of commodity performance (DBC) in H1 shows agricultural commodities (DBA) the top performer, despite steep falls in coffee (JO) and cotton (BAL), as the drought sends grains (JJG) soaring. Leading on the downside are the economically sensitive energy (JJE) and industrial metals (JJM) sectors. Comment! [Commodities]
Thursday, June 28, 2012, 1:19 PM Investors are currently cautious on commodities, but expect better performance and a higher exposure to the sector over the coming year, finds Credit Suisse in a survey of institutional players and family offices. The difficulty now is the high correlation with equities - typically a selling point for commodities is their ability to deliver when stocks don't. 1 Comment [Commodities]
Wednesday, June 13, 2012, 2:20 PM BHP Billiton (BHP -0.2%), a natural resources bellwether as the world's largest miner, cuts its outlook for commodities prices over the next 3-5 years, FT reports, a move likely to cement the view that the decade-long commodities supercycle on the back of Chinese growth has peaked. BHP has already signaled greater discipline in its plans to invest ~$80B in new projects. 4 Comments [Commodities]
Monday, May 14, 2012, 3:48 PM Continued strength in the dollar weighs on commodities, sending the CRB Index -1.2%, its fifth straight loss and eighth in nine sessions. Crude oil -1.3% at $94.76/bbl, natural gas -3.2% at $2.43 per MMBtu, gold -1.4% at $1561.10/oz., silver -1.9% to $28.35/oz. CRB is now -5.5% YTD, trading at its lowest level since Aug. 2010 and below its 10-year average price of 289.3. Comment! [Commodities]
Monday, September 26, 2011, 10:12 AM The powerful uptrend line from the 2008 bottom in commodities and commodity currencies have both been broken at the same time, notes Barclays technical guru Jordan Kotick. It suggests to him the post-2008 recovery is over. 4 Comments [Commodities, Global & FX, Quick Ideas]
Monday, August 8, 2011, 1:11 PM Commodity prices get slammed as economic fears intensify with some metals breaking through what is seen as important technical levels. Any current projections for commodity prices now need to be wadded up and be given a fresh macro look. Leading the downward spiral: Steel SLZ -7.4%, Copper JJC -7%, Tin JJT -6%. Comment! [Commodities, On the Move, Quick Ideas]