Even Central Banks Are Buying Australian As the RBA Plans Higher Rates

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released its minutes from its last board meeting, May 3. I reviewed these minutes curious to understand the bank’s expectations for commodity prices given the on-going sell-off in commodities. The meeting occurred just as commodities started their current sell-off, so these pressures were not salient at the time. However, … Read more

links for 2011-04-29

Gold Luring Central-Bank Buyers May Extend Record Rally – Bloomberg Central banks that were net sellers of gold a decade ago are buying the precious metal to reduce their reliance on the dollar as a reserve currency, signaling demand that may extend a record rally in prices. (tags: gold monetary_policy central_banks) Adjusted For Inflation, Dollar … Read more

Dollar Survives Support…but Not for Much Longer

The dollar approached critical support last week and neatly bounced just as I had hoped and expected. However, as I examine the technical prospects for an extended rally, I cannot shake a resurgent sense of bearishness about the dollar. The daily chart shows some pretty tough overhead resistance awaits any further rally in the dollar: … Read more

Coping with Destabilizing Coffee Prices

Coffee prices have soared along with most other commodities over the past year and more. For example, the iPath Dow Jones-UBS Coffee Total Return Sub-Index ETN (aka JO) is up 70% since the end of 2009. The last earnings results from Starbucks (SBUX) demonstrated the stress from these higher coffee prices. The company slightly lowered … Read more

Nassim Taleb Is So Distressed By QE2 That He Ends His Media Blackout

Nassim Taleb, famous author of “Fooled by Randomness” and “The Black Swan”, was so distressed by the Federal Reserve’s roll-out of quantitative easing part 2 that he ended his media black-out and interviewed with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television a few days ago. Anyone familiar with Taleb will not find any new themes or critiques … Read more