MARKET COMMENT
November 21, 2006
Someone’s messin’ with poor
innocents who’ve bought into the rumor that there’s a possibility of a “Platinum”
ETF that, when and if issued, would surely drive the metal’s price through the
roof. [Note
story here] From the action today,
it looks like an old-fashioned “snipe hunt” to me where some are left holding
the bag.
The chart of the active contract shows a net loss of $15 on
the day with an intra-day high exceeding $50 above the previous day’s
close. Somebody got “gamed” at least today
anyway!
As with platinum, copper markets have also seen similar
rumors. But, given already tight
supplies, a copper ETF seems unlikely.
But don’t sell Wall Street short period!
It’s not really a surprise to hear rumors like this about copper since
it was rapidly approaching obvious support at $3.00.
Metals, particularly of the less liquid variety, can break
your heart and wallet. As an aside, I
remember being long silver back in 1985 [I think] at around $7.00. I was at one of those WS conferences and
waltzed into a meeting with silver prices pushing $11.00 dreaming of the many
ways I was going to spend the quickly acquired treasure. Smugly leaving the meeting a scant two hours
later and bragging about my certain gains a colleague whispered that silver had
plummeted to $8.00. Not wanting to throw
up in a crowd, I rushed back to my room and hyperventilated there maintaining
my dignity if nothing else. Such can be
the grief and comeuppance only commodity trading can provide.
Speculation and greed isn’t confined to commodity markets. There was much hoopla today over GOOG’s ascent to $500 and AAPL’s
new highs. So “search” and “iPod’s”
are what the US
economy is all about. Who are we to
argue?
We should inspect the usual suspects again to see if there’s
anything else to glean from today’s action.
Elsewhere these are some random “fryguy”
specials.
That about covers the world for today doesn’t it? We’ll post once more tomorrow and then won’t
post again for subscribers until Sunday.
Have a great evening!
Disclaimer: The ETF
Digest maintains positions in: GLD, SLV, CEF, FDN, HHH, IEF, XLB, SPY QQQQ,
PZJ, PZI, PBW, EWZ, EWW, EWP, TRF, IFN and FXI.