Archives: 2007 July

The Investment World Today blog is being developed to cover developments and offer insights in major investment areas like forex markets trading, stock markets and trading, the home loan market, commodities futures markets, consumer loans, and the market for consumer related insurance.

The editor and chief writer for Investment World Today will be Gerald Greene, who has over 30 years of experience taking part in and writing about world business and financial markets.

If you have an interest in investing get in the habit of checking Investment World Today out. Being exposed to just one or two good ideas every now and then could save or make you a lot of money.

The high prices for commodities will likely be with us for a very long time.

The reason is simple. Fast growing economies in China, India, Latin America, and elsewhere are creating a huge demand for more and better food as well as for all types of consumer products.

Rampant monetary expansion is also contributing to the bullish scenario. The following comments are from analyst Puru Saxena, writing in The Daily Reckoning.

“If you have invested in commodities, you will be thrilled to learn that apart from energy, the inventory levels of other resources such as base metals or food are also extremely depleted. And these stockpiles are low due to the sudden and unexpected surge in demand brought about by the rapid industrialization and urbanization of China, India and parts of Latin America.

A growing percentage of the three billion people in the “emerging” economies are now putting immense pressure on the planet’s
resources as consumers, and the scramble to find more commodities is on.

Exploration activity, whether for metals or energy, is at multi-year highs and I suspect that billions of dollars will be spent in the years ahead as nations desperately look for additional resources to feed demand.”

Until the world economics enter a deep and prolonged recession the pressures from demand growth in the face of a shortage of commodity supplies will keep an upward bias to prices.

Commodity reference prices quotes are easy to keep up with on the Internet. A service with 15 minute delays is offered by CNN.

While in the fast moving world of commodities these quotes are not good enough to trade with they will give you a quick indication as to how a market is trading.

For up to date quotes you can open an account, even a “practice” account, with one of the many online brokers. Your better brokers now offer free data feeds and trading platforms that would have been quite expensive to set up even a few years ago.

If you are a first time trader it is highly recommended that you set up and use a practice account before jumping into the commodity trading business using real money.