The QE2 Reference Price Identifies the Strongest Iron Ore and Metallurgical Coal Plays

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on September 16, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Last week, I demonstrated how the timing of QE2 provided a useful reference point for buying Freeport-McMoran (FCX) as part of a coming revision of the commodity crash playbook. In this … Read more

2012 Will Begin with Several Candidate Trades for the Commodity Crash Playbook

This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 28, 2011. Click here to read the entire piece.) The Federal Reserve’s second phase of quantitative easing (QE2) is slowly becoming a distant memory…{snip} The stark contrast between winning and losing stocks (S&P 500 index versus many commodity stocks) leaves … Read more

Commodities Crash: Stocks that Have Erased QE2 gains

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) In Tuesday’s statement on monetary policy, the Federal Reserve decided to reassure markets that interest rates are likely to stay at “exceptionally low levels” at least through the middle of 2013…{snip}…This dramatic change in the … Read more

“Commodities Crash” Triggers First Trades – ANR and EWZ

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) In July, I used ideas from Jeremy Grantham to lay out a case for taking advantage of a coming “commodities crash” to invest in and prepare for a future resource-constrained world: “Preparing for Profits in … Read more

Profiting from Physical Assets in a Resource-Constrained World – Rules and Picks (Part 2 of 2)

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha. Click here to read the entire piece.) {snip} This piece is a follow-up post to “Preparing for Profits in a Resource-Constrained World” (Part 1) in which I discussed the implications of Jeremy Grantham’s fundamental thesis of a new world where resources are … Read more

Steel Stalls

The massive and historic floods in Australia have driven coal prices up. This is particularly important for steel since Australia exports 2/3 of the world’s coal used for making steel (coking coal). Steelmakers have already been struggling with increasing input costs, so the Australian floods are sure to pinch profits further. At the close of … Read more