schminkie

Back to the Future - Commodities Rule Again

yep. pretty odd maybe? till i see even a tiny bit of fundamentals in the ebb and flow on wall street i'll sit quietly. my coal and ore is already screwed. maybe if i get back to a 50% loss i'll sell and short.

did you notice that china is making noises about building 3 railroads and rebuilding a few earthquake torn provinces eg steel may be back?

Commodities Are Taken to the Woodshed - What's the Game Plan?

last i read the supplies of thermal coal were hitting rock bottom at u.s. electric power plants and the shortage of metallurgical coal for coke/steel production gave producers a strangle hold on the steel industry, sky high prices. demand is well beyond supply to a point that a 'slow down' in china would barely put a dent in the situation. minus export, the demand for fundamental substances for building
infrastructure alone will support the coal industry, iron ore industry, etc. the amelioration of weather related damage in australia and the end of ore negotiations between bhp billiton and chinese steel mills will not lessen but instead will bake in and stabilize the doubled [+/-] prices. the long term power disaster in south africa is awful yet does not deter investment by arcelor mittal et al.

for the short run i suppose dips spurts and corrections are important plays in commodities. but in the long, run even the so-called slow downs and price barriers and macro- economic concerns will bow to the strength of what is essentially an industrial revolution; an economic movement of historic [literally] proportions.

much chatter about lower exports from china. more important is the lower exports of these commodities from the likes of indonesia, vietnam and india. given the choice between selling them at record profits or retaining them [gov't policy, tariffs] to use for their own infrastructures, it seems for now that local investment rules.

personally i like dry bulk shipping, brazilian iron/steel industries and met coal miners. i am fairly giddy at the prospect of taking substantial gains and buying back in way lower.

f.y.i: in my readings [foreign press, trade papers, gov't positions and studies] i find that fear of an american slow down etc. is often lip service and that more than one of these source expresses no fear whatsoever. i think there is schadenfreude at work to wit, many nations are happy to delink from the u.s. and it's tsuris as much as is possible.