Oil, Metals, Soft Commodities

Oil, Metals, Soft Commodities

OPEC and G20 Meetings Not Guaranteed

On 8 March 2020, Saudi Arabia initiated an oil price war with Russia, triggering a rout in the oil market at a time where the world is facing a pandemic and many countries forced to shut down their activities and borders. Crude oil prices have lost nearly half of their prices, battled by a simultaneous demand and supply shock. Last Thursday, Pr...

April 8, 2020
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First Quarter: Crisis, Volatility, and Opportunities

The first quarter of 2020 was marred by unpredicted events that rattled the financial markets: Tensions between US and Iran; The extreme weather conditions across the globe as a result of climate change; The novel coronavirus; and An oil price war between Saudi Arabia, the oil kingdom, and Russia. A Trio of Crises Faced by an unpreced...

March 31, 2020
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The Perfect Storm Brewing in the Oil Market

The Perfect Storm Brewing in the Oil Market The oil and gas industry has been undergoing significant challenges due to the structural shift within the industry. A pandemic-induced economic downturn and an oil price war have now added another layer of uncertainty to the oil markets. Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Russia have disrupted the stab...

March 27, 2020
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Gold Is Being Liquidated

Liquidity Crisis High levels of liquidity happen when there is both supply and demand for an asset, meaning transactions can take place easily. A market is considered to be liquid if it can absorb liquidity trades with significant changes in price. A liquidity crisis is, therefore, an acute shortage or drying up of liquidity. In simple terms, it...

March 18, 2020
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US Dollar and Gold in Tandem

Which safe-haven to choose in 2020 – Gold or the Mighty Dollar? In times of uncertainties – be it economical, political or policy-related, investors generally seek safety with haven assets like the US dollar, Japanese Yen, Swiss franc or Gold. Our attention today is on Gold and the US dollar, both of which have had an interesting start to...

January 24, 2020
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2020 Kicks off with US-Iran and Climate Change Crisis

The start of the year was marred by the escalating tensions between the US and Iran while extreme weather conditions across the global triggered fierce debates about climate change. What do we know so far about the tensions between Iran and the US? Iranian-backed militia killed an American Defense Contractor The US retaliated with missile...

January 15, 2020
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2019 in a Nutshell and the Transition to a New Decade

If we could describe the year 2019 in one word, we believe uncertainty says it all. The world entered 2019 with a high level of ambiguity and is poised to finish the year with the same extent of uncertainties. The Global Economic Policy Uncertainty Index which is a GDP-weighted average of national EPU indices for 20 countries has remained in ele...

December 20, 2019
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OPEC Meeting: A Crucial Week for the Oil Market

Thursday’s OPEC meeting will be a decisive one for the oil market. OPEC members and its allies (OPEC+) will gather on the 5th and 6th of December for the 177th meeting of the OPEC conference. This producer’s summit is likely to be heavily influenced by the upcoming Saudi Aramco’s IPO. OPEC+ Politics The rising tensions in the Middle East...

December 3, 2019
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RBA: “QE is not on our Agenda!”

This year’s Annual Dinner of the Australian Business Economists was probably the most important event before the year ends. In a year that saw the RBA cutting interest rates three times, the speech around “Unconventional Monetary Policy: Some Lessons From Overseas” fueled speculations that the RBA is to tap into the unchartered territory...

November 29, 2019
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The World’s Biggest IPO: Saudi Aramco

What do we know about the state-owned oil giant - Saudi Aramco? World’s largest company World’s biggest state-owned oil and gas companies World’s cheapest oil producer A leader in oil production Second-largest proven crude oil reserves All of the above would probably make this upcoming Initial Public Offering (IPO) one of the...

November 21, 2019
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Gold to Silver Ratio: Is it useful to commodity CFD traders?

When digging deeper into issues relating to trading precious metals you may come across the idea of using gold to silver ratios as part of decision-making. This brief article explores what this means both in terms of definition and potential implications for traders.   What is the Gold-Silver Ratio? The direction and degree of move...

July 2, 2019
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Largest Crude Oil Reserves in the World

Venezuela At number one, we have a country which has been in turmoil in the last few months – Venezuela. Economic and social crisis have hit the South American nation and things are not looking to get better any time soon. However, it does top the list as the country with the largest crude oil reserves in the world at 300 billion barrels. Wort...

May 3, 2019
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Largest Crude Oil Reserves in the World

We have seen the price of crude oil (USOUSD) rise by about 43% since the beginning of the year, from around $44 per barrel to $63 per barrel at the time of writing this. It reached the highest level since November 2018 last week, on the 9th April to be exact, when it was trading at around $64.71 per barrel. In this article, we will take a look at...

April 16, 2019
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Black and Yellow Gold

Commodities markets were on sell-off mode on Friday. The black and yellow gold was sent to the downside dragged by the disappointing Purchasing Managers Index data. Gold - XAUUSD The Chart shows that Gold price pulled back as from last Wednesday on a broad-based US dollar strength and retreated from its 2019 highs. The yellow metal struggled to ...

March 4, 2019
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WTI in Bear Mode

  Deteriorating demand and rising global output are the main factors that sent the WTI Crude into a bear market territory. There is a shift of sentiment in the oil markets. The US sanctions have been the primary influence behind the rally in oil prices, and now that fears have eased, fundamentals took over, and economic forces- demand and su...

November 9, 2018
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