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Oil has traded as low as $68.57 today, its lowest since August 2007. Gold is down $40 to below $800 an ounce. And all other commodity prices are getting pummeled.
Now, I certainly foresaw some major declines in commodity prices as a major recession took hold, the speed of everything unfolding has surprised me [...]

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In July, I made my ten predictions for the markets and global economy for the rest of the year. Some of my predictions were pretty pedestrians, and some were fairly bold. Let’s take a look and see how I’m doing.
Here’s what I originally said:

Oil prices will dip below $100 before year-end. Let’s [...]

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The markets are having a very bad day today. After we saw the Europeans were also vulnerable to this credit crisis, stock markets worldwide sold off, with many European markets seeing their largest drops since 1987. For Europe, today is as bad as last Monday’s 777 point fall was for the U.S.
Sectors being [...]

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Hurricane Ike is going to be a difficult storm. It is a massive storm with tropical storm force winds covering the entire Gulf of Mexico. Disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico, in refining capacity and in gasoline distribution, as well as gasoline shortages at the pump will certainly drive up prices.
Let’s just hope [...]

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Up until two days ago oil was crashing down toward $110 a barrel as demand growth estimates have been clipped. So what happened to peak oil? Nothing happened; peak oil should still be a concern.
For a larger context on peak oil, see my June post ‘Peak oil: are we there yet?‘ From where [...]

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While the finance world is concerned with its own problems of writedowns and deflating asset prices, a proxy war of great importance is being fought in the country of Georgia. It has everything to do with both a Russo-American power struggle and oil, with far-reaching implications for geopolitics.
This war started as a clash between [...]

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The Financial Times Deutschland is reporting that China and Iraq want to revive a Saddam-era oil contract between the two nation that is worth billions of dollars. The contract, an obvious economic coup for China, secures Beijing exploration and development in the south of Baghdad situated Ahdab oil field.
The Iraqi government looks to be doing [...]

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Haven’t we been told time and again that much of the oil price rise was due to to external event risk like political instability and war? Well we’ve got this is spades and oil is still falling.
Today, Russia has launched a war against its neighboring country Georgia, who’s ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze was once [...]

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One reason I believe inflation pressures will slow going forward is that the global economy has already slowed enough to have a measurable impact on oil demand and all commodity prices across the board. As July comes to an end, the month is shaping up to be the worst in commodities for 28 years.
Tumbling [...]

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I am on record for expecting a drop in oil prices in the very near future due to demand destruction. Regarding the super spike, I believe much of the end rally in oil prices had little to do with fundamentals and everything to do with commodity market liquidity.
Proof comes from refining margins. ‘ Big [...]