(Harvest) There were some trend surprises in markets near the end of the year; the upward price movement in both precious and base metals and the weather shock in natural gas market and to a lesser extent oil product markets. The question for the beginning of the year is whether these trends will only be short-term in nature. Strong price spikes, especially weather related, are often reversed. Both base and precious metal sectors were up across the board and have moved through short-term, intermediate, and longer-term trend signals. While base metal trends have been building on the economic growth story, the gold and precious moves were somewhat unexpected even with the talk of higher inflation.

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