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Commodity Online – Agoracom market analyst Peter Grandich, who isn’t among those who expect the world at large to emerge from “this absolutely horrific downturn” by year-end, instead sees good opportunities on the horizon for investors who want to “buy things on the cheap” because prices will fall in the equity markets.
He also sees bright prospects for gold—particularly gold ETFs and mining companies that are in or near production and have potential for developing additional deposits. At the same time, Peter tells The Gold Report that the “severely wounded” U.S. economy should anticipate rougher and tougher times.
San Francisco Chronicle – Virgin America could not have picked a worse time to launch an airline, on the eve of gravity-defying fuel prices and a cruel recession. The financial numbers are still red after a year and a half of operations, but the chief executive sees a break in the clouds and profitability on the horizon for the only California-based airline.
Bloomberg – Commodities markets are heading for the biggest annual decline since 2001 as investors exit leveraged bets and slowing economic growth erodes demand for raw materials.
The value of the 19 commodities in the Reuters-Jefferies CRB Index fell $280.6 billion, or 43 percent, from its July 3 peak, a loss larger than their total worth two years ago, data compiled by Bloomberg show. UBS AG, the Zurich-based bank that bought Enron Corp.’s energy unit in 2002, plans to exit most commodity trading. About 15 percent of investors in Boone Pickens’s BP Capital LLC hedge fund may want their money back.
The same credit-market seizure that led to last month’s bankruptcy of New York-based Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the forced sale of Merrill Lynch & Co. is squeezing speculators who drove commodities to record highs. Slower expansion in the U.S., China and India is also undermining prices of crude oil, which fell 36 percent, and corn, down 43 percent.
