Among investors interested in exposure to commodities, gold and crude oil tend to dominate most discussions; these natural resources are among the most widely traded in the world, and tend to account for the lion’s share of allocations to the “third asset class” in most long-term portfolios. But these two commodities are, of course, only the tip of the iceberg; there are dozens of resources that can be used as investable assets, ranging from dietary staples such as wheat and corn to raw materials used widely in construction such as timber and copper. [click to continue…]
United States Commodity Funds, the firm behind the innovative USCI, rolled out another product created through its partnership with SummerHaven this week. The new United States Copper Index Fund (CPER) will be linked to the SummerHaven Copper Index Total Return, a single-commodity index consisting of copper futures contracts traded on the COMEX exchange. The index [...]
After concerns about Europe dominated trading in the early part of the week, U.S. and international markets staged a comeback in the final sessions of the week, putting most major benchmarks higher but not enough to break through into the green on the week. Though Friday was light on volume ahead of an extended holiday [...]
Weekly Recap Last week proved to be quite bumpy for investors, as asset classes from stocks to commodities–and everything in between–swayed between gains and losses for the last several trading days on Wall Street. Volatility was abundant across all markets and domestic equity indexes ended the week relatively flat, much like crude oil and silver [...]
Markets failed to respond to solid earnings reports from key market bellwethers as any hope for a strong day was soon squashed by midday trading. Still, both the Dow and the S&P 500 managed to finished the day in the green as the Dow jumped by 0.4% while the S&P 500 rose by 0.2%, however, [...]
Equity markets endured another rocky session as a stronger dollar and concerns over China weighed on stocks across the board. The Dow and the S&P both slipped by just two points while the Nasdaq suffered more widespread losses of 0.8% thanks to weakness in the technology sector. Commodities also suffered heavily on the day as [...]
Markets tumbled in the early part of Friday’s session before recouping much of their losses to close out the first week of January. Both the Dow and the S&P 500 slid by 0.2% while the Nasdaq fell by 0.3% on the day thanks to a lower than expected increase in jobs for December 2010. Commodity [...]
Stocks continued an uneventful week on Thursday, as most major indexes finished slightly down on light trading volumes. After a lack of meaningful data in previous sessions, there was an abundance of good news on Thursday. Initial claims for unemployment dropped to the lowest level in more than two years last week according to Labor [...]
Markets officially re-opened Monday after an extended holiday weekend, though trading was relatively light thanks to prolonged vacations and the fallout from a blizzard that dumped two feet of snow across much of New York. Stocks stayed in a relatively tight range for much of the session, as a lack of earnings reports or any [...]
With the finish line in sight, 2010 has been a very interesting year for commodity investors; a number of products hit multi-year or all time record highs thanks to a weaker dollar, strong emerging market and supply issues across much of the globe. Most of the supply issues that have impacted commodity markets have been [...]
Despite an early morning surge, American equity markets soon lost momentum and finished the day lower across the board. The Dow retreated by a modest 19 points while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 suffered more dramatic losses of 0.4% and 0.5%, respectively. Commodities also suffered broad weakness as a stronger dollar weighed on everything from [...]
