Gold continued

 

Is this a retracement or could it become a rout! ( in light of EurUsd,ES#U12 etc)

see previous posts

Gold..continued & EURUSD

Gold...Is this the real thing?...continued

see previous post

Gold..Beware of this move . Is it the real deal?

Anyone who follows my website(commodity-analysis.co.uk) will know that this fork is the key to recent support.. infact you can see   price bounced along like on the head of a pin when you get down to 240 and 60 min TF's. The reaction lines are key and without them you really have no idea where price is going to find support and resistance. This is not to say that price is just being affected by one fork and anyone who follows this blog will have seen ample proof that price is affected by an unlimited number of forks/reaction lines at any one moment in time.

The pink/lilac reaction line is the 50% reaction line ( at 50% of the interval of the RLs') that should always be observed as there is often a reaction as can be seen here.but what I am watching now is price approaching the next red RL at what must be about 1680$. Once we see a break (zoom) up and through this line we know we are on our way back up but great care should be taken before this happens as we could fail and run out of steam and be pressured lower first.Below is a more detailed chart. See the subtle difference in line location in the 240min vs the daily.

EURUSD +ES U12 + Gold

This is just one of scores of significant forks in play with a myriad of reaction lines but with Euro zone fundamentals ( Yawn, yawn) back on the agenda we may see a fail or push up through this red downsloping RL today, not forgetting it's Friday.
In the ES i have my eye on the 1392 area to close shorts and perhaps see support

Emini S&P..Where from here? FOMC effect plus Corns topping out...dont get sucked in here

I am in two minds. Either we make a second lower high around here (1416) and fail to hit the CL of the various upsloping forks seen in the above charts or we go back to test the highs around 1424.50. ...

 Corn may well cycle down once more before breaking out (of this resisting/supporting band of ML/RLs) to higher ground

EURUSD......Greece needs air to breathe

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras started a European charm offensive on Wednesday with an appeal to Germans for more time to meet Athens’ borrowing obligations, but he may struggle to make his case in a series of meetings this week with EU leaders.

“All we want is a bit of ‘air to breathe’ to get the economy running and to increase state income. More time does not automatically mean more money,” Mr. Samaras said in an interview with Germany’s mass-market Bild newspaper, which has often taken a ferociously skeptical line on bailing out Greece.

I have a feeling that Greece wants to spend more Northern European money and when it finally stops being bailed out will blame the Germans, default on its debt obligations and finally leave the euro...Meanwhile we are looking at 1.25 or a glorious failure. 

I gave up expecting financial meltdown last year as it slowly dawned on me that this is a wholly political solution to a financial crisis and It would not surprise me if this rumbles on for another 5 years or even 10 before a fudged solution is accepted/ratified by member states. The markets will continue to moan and wail.

Gold finally breaks to the upside

This is perhaps the outcome of the last few months sideways pattern I think. We have made succesively higher lows as we cycled along and my initial hope to see 1450 and lower has for the moment gone and I favour the upside but we will see.

I hope you are watching Corn?

EURUSD & Corn plus ALGO article

 Here is a good looking fork and a great bottom!. Heres a long entry at 1.2295 after the turn.with an initial stp at 1.2290 target 1.2325

 

Corn below ( see yesterday's & precious charts/posts)

Lastly, I know very little about Algorythmic trading and care even less. To me it epitomises all that is wrong with the markets but regardless of if you love it or hate it or simply want to get your head round the finer details here is one of the most insightful articles I have read for some time

http://www.wired.com/business/2012/08/ff_wallstreet_trading/

Corn...contiued

 The aboev chart may not make sense to you but the lines are historical pitchforks from weekly/monthly time frames.The same chart is displayed below with log scale. See the difference? Notice also the gaps are often around the ML or reaction lines (red)...see the support/resistance offered by the lines. This is in effect true and orgainc market structure and makes far greater sense to trade these levels than pivots.

 Here below we have the CFD chart as per MT4 -again with historical PF's plus some local time frame PF's and all the reaction lines(again in red). I do not know if we will break out this time to the mid 830's upwards and we may cycle along this range once or more again. The bottom line is that to position yourself  long ( in outright futures) for the coming global food price rises you need to watch this range and see if  770 holds.

Corn...Is this the retracement?

 Position yourself for the coming food price boom? Is this a case of catching a falling piano or is this .25 Fib RT a possible entry?
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e37a491a-e2e1-11e1-a463-00144feab49a.html

 http://www.cnbc.com/id/48641656/G20_Plans_Response_to_Rising_Food_Prices?goback=.gde_153586_member_145714322

http://www.greenfield-group.co.uk/news.htmlhttp://www.greenfield-group.co.uk/news.html

ES...the big picture Plus the coming food crisis & grains/USDA report etcs

Wold Food Crisis: Summary of the Summary by Jeremey Grantham/reproduced here from Morningstar website( link at bottom)
We are five years into a severe global food crisis that is very unlikely to go away. It will threaten poor countries with increased malnutrition and starvation and even collapse. Resource squabbles and waves of food-induced migration will threaten global stability and global growth. This threat is badly underestimated by almost everybody and all institutions with the possible exception of some military establishments.
Summary1. Last year we reported the data that showed that we are 10 years into a paradigm shift or phase change from falling resource prices into quite rapidly rising real prices.
2. It now appears that we are also about five years into a chronic global food crisis that is unlikely to fade for many decades, at least until the global population has considerably declined from its likely peak of over nine billion in 2050.

3. The general assumption is that we need to increase food production by 60% to 100% by 2050 to feed at least a modest sufficiency of calories to all 9 billion+ people plus to deliver much more meat to the rapidly increasing middle classes of the developing world.
4. It is also widely assumed that at least the lower end of this target will be achieved. I believe that this is substantially optimistic. At very best, if we reach that level we will not be able to hold it. Much more likely, we will not come close because there are too many factors that will make growth in food output increasingly difficult where it used to be easy:

• Grain productivity has fallen decade by decade since 1970 from 3.5% to 1.5%. Quite probably, the most efficient grain producers are approaching a “glass ceiling” where further increases in productivity per acre approach zero at the grain species’ limit (just as race horses do not run materially faster now than in the 1920s). Remarkably, investment in agricultural research has steadily fallen globally, as a percent of GDP.
• Water problems will increase to a point where gains from increased irrigation will be offset by the loss of underground water and the salination of the soil.
• Persistent bad farming practices perpetuate land degradation, which will continue to undermine our long-term sustainable productive capacity.
• Incremental returns from increasing fertilizer use will steadily decline on the margin for fertiliser use has increased five-fold in the last 50 years and the easy pickings are behind us.
• There will be increased weather instability, notably floods and droughts, but also steadily increasing heat. The last three years of global weather were so bad that to draw three such years randomly would have been a remote possibility. The climate is changing.
•  The costs of fertiliser and fuel will rise rapidly.

5. Even if we could produce enough food globally to feed everyone satisfactorily, the continued steady rise in the cost of inputs will mean increasing numbers will not be able to afford the food we produce. This is a key point that is often missed.
6. On the positive side, scientists are now very optimistic that they will be able to engineer more efficient photosynthesising “C4” genes (corn belongs to that family) into relatively inefficient but vital “C3” plants such as rice and wheat, in 20 to 30 years. If successful this would increase output up to 50% and would buy time for a less painful transition to a sustainable population.
7. Many of these increasing difficulties were reflected in the original 2008 food crisis and the 2011 rebound. The last six weeks’ price rise is more threatening because it occurred despite very much larger plantings than were available in 2008. Global demand is now so high and rising so fast and reserves are so low that price sensitivity to weather setbacks has become extreme.
8. It seems likely that several countries dependent on foreign grain imports have in fact never recovered from the 2008 shock. Countries like Egypt saw the percent of their consumer budget for food rise to 40%. At this level, social pressures may be at an extreme and probably have already contributed to the Arab Spring. Any price increases from here may cause social collapse and a wave of immigration on a scale never before experienced in peacetime. Another doubling in grain prices would be catastrophic.
9. Strong countermeasures to prevent a food crisis would be effective in curtailing the current crisis and preventing the development of a much greater crisis, but these measures will likely not be taken. This is because the price signals for the rich countries are too weak – they can afford the higher price – and there is inertia in all parts of the system. Also, the problems of malnutrition in distant countries are not generally felt as high-order priorities in the richer countries.
10. If food pressures recur and are reinforced by fuel price increases, the risks of social collapse and global instability increase to a point where they probably become the major source of international confrontations. China is particularly concerned (even slightly desperate) about resource scarcity, especially food.
11. The general public, the media, the financial markets and governments badly underestimate these risks. Only the military of some countries, including the US and the UK, seem to appreciate them appropriately.
12. Natural gas supply increases buy some time, mainly for the US, but seem more likely to create complacency and continued dependence on hydrocarbons. The energy situation is less pressing globally in the short term than is the food problem. Supplies are sufficient to cause merely a slow and erratic price increase. The main problem with oil is in its contribution to the food problem through higher farming costs and generally increasing cost pressures on poorer countries.
13. In the longer term, in contrast, energy costs and absolute shortage in the case of oil form a serious problem second only to food shortages and will result in prices so high that they will impact global growth and even the viability of modern, rather fragile, economies.
14. On paper, though, the energy problem can be relatively easily addressed through very large investments in renewables and smart grids. Those countries that do this will, in several decades, eventually emerge with large advantages in lower marginal costs and in energy security. Most countries including the US will not muster the political will to overcome inertia, wishful thinking, and the enormous political power of the energy interests to embark on these expensive programmes. They risk being left behind in competiveness.
15. Availability of metals is, in contrast, a minor problem in the next few decades. The prices will steadily rise but the consequences will be less. In the long run though, metals are the most intractable problem. There is no brain-intensive solution as there is for agriculture (i.e., organic farming), nor is there any capital-intensive or technology-intensive solution as there is for energy. We will just slowly run out and prices will rise.
16. The results of these problems will be felt mainly as price pressure in rich countries. The need to obtain adequate resources will squeeze national budgets, profit margins and economic growth. For poor countries, though, it is literally a matter of survival.
17. We are badly designed to deal with this problem: regrettably we are not the efficient species of investment theory, but ill-informed, manipulated, full of inertia and corruptible. Only once in a blue moon—like World War II—do we perform anywhere near our theoretical capabilities and this time the enemy is amorphous and delivers its attack very, very slowly. But the stakes globally are very high indeed. We must try harder.
18. The following comments on this topic are mine personally and reflect my Foundation’s portfolio (and a total lack of career risk!). These comments are based on a time horizon of 10 years and beyond. The portfolio investment implications are that investors should expect resource stocks—those with resources in the ground—to outperform over the next several decades as real prices of the resources rise. Farming and forestry, though, are at the top of the list. Serious long-term investors should have a very substantial overweighting in a resource package. I suggest for long-term investors a resource position of at least 30%. Another relative beneficiary of resource pressure is the quality group of equities. Resources are a smaller fraction of final sales than average and higher profit margins make them more resilient to margin pressures.
19. Perhaps more importantly, the resource squeeze, coupled with other growth-reducing factors (to be discussed next quarter), is likely to reduce the return from the balance of the portfolio.

http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/news/articles/107679/Food-Crisis-Puts-Spotlight-on-Resource-Stocks.aspx

ES U12 Energy coil...forks are useless here!

Price has taken to gyrating up and down in a battle to get up and through a set of monthly time frame reaction lines plus the black UMLP you can see here. Forks in this situation do not work and you get multiple failures in both up & down forks so they remain unrelaible re the CL. The upper and lower MLH/MLP's still seem to have effect. There is no doubt price wants to go higher and as of the time of writing has cycled up and down 3 times including yesterdays first effort. This appears as a series of side by side bars in the high time frame. This could continue with false break ups and downs until like a knife through butter it suddenly breaks out...make sure your on the right side of the market when it does! I have ex colleagues who trade these ranges but for me I remain flat. I expect it to go higher tomorrow for a crazy Friday..but I am unsure> the upside is wide open until 1415 but there are many gaps (1360-62 is just one) left on the downside so its not unthinkable for a collapse tomorrow. ( all red lines are reaction lines). If you want to find resistance in any time frame use the FNL fork. (First & Last). It never fails (but is not orthadox andrews). See the example in the top 2 charts and try on any chart. In an upsloping fork use P0 then the first immediate high pivot ( before any retracement) ie the top of wave 1 as p1 then the last significant low.

Triple tops EurUsd & ES U12 looking toppy?

 & EurUsd below showing a stripped plain chart

PFG Best...A regulatory failure by the NFA

Below is a copy of  Russ Wassendorf's (failed) suicide note. he was CEO of PFGBest, For the full article please follow this link.

I have committed fraud. For this I feel constant and intense guilt. I am very remorseful that my greatest transgressions have been to my fellow man. Through a scheme of using false bank statements I have been able to embezzle millions of dollars from customer accounts at Peregrine Financial Group, Inc. The forgeries started nearly twenty years ago and have gone undetected until now. I was able to conceal my crime of forgery by being the sole individual with access to the US Bank accounts held by PFG. No one else in the company ever saw an actual US Bank statement. The Bank statements were always delivered directly to me when they arrived in the mail. I made counterfeit statements within a few hours of receiving the actual statements and gave the forgeries to the accounting department.
… I had no access to additional capital and I was forced into a difficult decision: Should I go out of business or cheat? I guess my ego was too big to admit failure. So I cheated, I falsified the very core of the financial documents of PFG, the Bank Statements. At first I had to make forgeries of both the Firstar Bank Statements and the Harris Bank Statements. When I choose [sic] to close the Harris Account, I only had to falsify the Firstar statements [elsewhere in signed statement Wasendorf noted that Firstar "eventually became US Bank"]. I also made forgeries of official letters and correspondence from the bank, as well as transaction confirmation statements.
Using a combination of Photo Shop, Excel, scanners, and both laser and ink jet printers I was able to make very convincing forgeries of nearing every document that came from the Bank. I could create forgeries very quickly so no one suspected that my forgeries were not the real thing that had just arrived in the mail.
With careful concealment and blunt authority I was able to hide my fraud from others at PFG. PFG grew out of a one man shop, a business I started in the basement of my home. As I added people to the company everyone knew I was the guy in charge. If anyone questioned my authority I would simply point out that I was the sole shareholder. I established rules and procedures as each new situation arose. I ordered that US Bank statement were to be delivered directly to me unopened, to make sure no one was able to examine an actual US Bank Statement. I was also the only person with online access to PFG’s account using US Bank’s online portal. On US Bank side, I told representatives at the Bank that I was the only person they should interface with at PFG.
When it became a common practice for Certified Auditors and the Field Auditors of the Regulators to mail Balance Confirmation Forms to Banks and other entities holding customer funds I opened a post office box. the box was originally in the name of Firstar Bank but was eventually changed to US Bank. I put the address “PO Box 706, Cedar Falls, IA 50613-0030″  Confirmation Forms to the Bank’s false address, I would intercept the Form, type in the amount I needed to show, forge a Bank Officer’s signature and mail it back to the Regulator or Certified Auditor.
When online Banking became prevalent I learned how to falsify online Bank Statements and the Regulators accepted them without question.

Here is the link to the background to this shocking story