Be careful about charts like that posted above. Don't just use something like that on its own. Often the reason for a spike in a certain commodity's price is due to some one-time event. This is particularly true of agricultural commodities, since they are very susceptible to year-to-year fluctuations in climate or even one-time weather events. Something that went up big one year could very well regress to the mean and go down big the next.
Look at the "big picture". The world is demanding more oil and gas, but there's only limited supply. Natural gas is in a supply-glut situation, hence why it has gone down, but at some point this IS going to reverse. Fear over certain major world currencies - notably the US$ and the Euro - is leading people to invest in precious metals, and that's unlikely to stop. The auto industry is recovering - and catalytic converters use platinum and palladium. Copper is tied to industrial demand. Silver is both an industrial metal and as a "store of value". Are these trends likely to reverse within your investment time horizon?
I have a basket of high-yielding small-cap and mid-cap Canadian companies, and many of you would see their brand names every day. On top of that, I own stocks in several mining companies and I write covered calls against them each month, and if they get called away then I look for the next buying opportunity; this results in me being in and out of them but that's how it is. I have not had any luck with day-trading (I still have a real job ...) but this strategy works for me and I only *really* have to pay attention to it the day after each monthly options expiration date.
Example: Gold went through a little correction last week; I took the opportunity to buy some Eldorado Gold (ELD) at just over $17 (seeing that it had gone down big on one day) and immediately wrote a February covered call against it at $19. It recovered a good chunk of it today. Now I'm in the odd position of hoping that it goes up but not TOO much by February expiration. If it does go up too much ... I'll be forced to sell it at a price higher than what I paid and close to its recent high. I'm OK with that. If it does what I think it will, I keep the option premium and write another call against it next month (and keep doing that until I misjudge it and it gets called away). Certainly it's possible that it will go down, but I don't think that's the long-term trend with gold.
I am 0% invested in the American market because I don't trust the US dollar, and I am 0% invested in bonds because I think the next direction for interest rates will be up, and that's not good for bonds.
Two quick corrections:
1: There is no shortage of oil or gas in the world, Americans have found huge resevers in Haiti and under Brazil, gas is not the only form of profit the oil companies makes. Take a day off work and look at everything in your house, from car tires to your vasoline and its container to candles to gasoline in your car and everything in between that can be maid out of oil, even before the final processing of "gasoline" which is the result of the final level of refining, there are millions of other products made by the earlier refinery process of that oil they dug out. Your lap top to your cell phone is using some ingredient of that dug up oil. Therefore at the end of the day they fool the public and everyday innocent people.
Reason why gas is cheap in the middle east is because their governments don't lie about the money they make, they only sell oil to rest of the world, no other extra products are made out of the oil, and then that money they make selling the oil goes straight into their economy to improve all facets of life, such as employee incomes, infrastructure, technology, investments, schools, healthcare, properties, tourism and even after that their government are still paying out to people from the Royal accounts since in most of these places their country is a kingship, and yet they are so well off and certainly prospering, while North American oil tycoons buy oil from them, lie to their people, never tell them how much of that oil they bought that they use to produce/manufacture so many other products that we also get taxed on, they make hundreds of times more then the people they buy the oil from, thats business, so wealthy but yet they screw around with people here and hide the truth because they want to be super rich and not distribute the wealth into their nation because they simple don't give a F, and that they know they can. Remember that day in spring when they announced gas prices would go up 6-7 cents, the whole day there were lines up at every gas station, pumps were going dry, then exactly a week later the price went back down the same amount, truth is they were ditching seasonal oil gasoline for profit, because winter gas is different from summer gas, and with their resourses they knew it wouldn't be long before summer would be coming hard and hot, and they needed to make as much on the winter inventory of gas. Do you think when the media said, "and tonight fill up because the gas prices are going up" anyone stood to think, im not going to be a punk and be fooled, if the gas prices still went up that night and not a single world of it was said to news the traffic flow to pumps would have been average, infact the next day when people would wake to realise price went up, they either would not fill up or just fill less with in the same $20 they always pay but now getting less gas per ltr, and frowning a bit, only to be surprised to see the prices to go down a week later.
This is called "Human Predictability" business of deceptive nature rely on human predictability, humans are very predictable and have been programmed to be, Google can now predict what your about to search the url can type in anywebsite you are about to go to with just typing the first to letters.
2: It dosen't matter if you invest in America or not, being a Canadian you have no choice because Canada's economy is dependant on Americans our GNP is dependant mainly on US's economy and power to buy, and our GDP is crap because Canadians don't buy open heartedly every Canadian wants the best products for the cheapest price and this is why our boarder security gets ****** and on the way back hassles Canadians who go and buy from US and then come back, because we are helping their economy not ours, and GDP sufferes because the lack of people willing to open their wallets to asking prices. We have to loose profits on many sectors, this is why we don't ever get the latest gadget or technology or cars, because the Government knows people will not buy here, we are just too cheap. Compared to Dubai for example; Canada is well 5 years behind, cell phones being introduced there now, will be released to Canada in 2016, our imports are left overs from other countries. In 2003 our imports and exports were 74%, todays it's about 65%, so we are becoming less reliant on America, but that reliance has shifted to farther continents, that at the end of the day rely on the US dollar as a global backed currency.
Truth is America's economy is a virus and it'll kill all other economies, unless somehow we find another global backed currency to rely on fast, which they won't let happen, because if someone did, the'll be destroyed like any other place that comes in their path to global domination.
Got a table from Cat, and my brother made my bed. The best place to find desks and dressers and random stuff, apartment buildings near universities/colleges at the end of the year, they just throw the stuff out instead of moving it with them
