2024-02-14 16:11
2024 is shaping up to be another volatile year. We expect global climate change will continue to deliver more “historic” weather events, some of which could impact food supplies… Read More
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Our Big Move Trades blog posts are specifically designed to identify trading opportunities by using our unique “pennies-on-the-dollar,†long-term, “set it and forget it†option strategies.
2023-08-20 21:40
We live in volatile times. 2023 looks to be the hottest year on record. Historic droughts and “100-year” floods are almost commonplace, threatening global food supplies. The Russ… Read More
2023-04-18 01:32
Volatility is the natural state for natural gas. Gas rallied 81%, declined 55%, rebounded 41%, and then declined another 80% in just nine months (June 2022 to February 2023). Its failure to… Read More
2023-03-07 16:00
“Why would anyone want to buy silver or gold, given their failure to rise in this inflationary environment?” We asked this question in the previous version of this report last Se… Read More
2023-01-11 22:54
Crude oil is volatile. It exploded 44% in the two weeks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and then declined 28% in the two weeks after it. Crude sold off sharply with the first an… Read More
2022-05-09 16:09
The current collapse in 10-year Treasury notes and the accompanying explosion in yields is breathtaking. We’ve been trading futures and options since 1984. We cannot remember see… Read More
2022-04-12 00:57
Heading to Europe this summer? You may be in for a pleasant surprise; the euro is on sale. At just 109.00 to the dollar, the euro is approaching lows made during the 2020 Covid collapse… Read More
2022-03-28 21:09
Weather and war are fueling powerful bull markets in corn. Huge amounts of North American corn are used to produce ethanol which is mixed into gasoline. What really intrigues us right now is… Read More
2022-03-17 17:19
The luck of the Irish came a day early yesterday. June T-note futures hit and then dipped below our most recent downside target of 124-00 before recovering after the Fed’s announcement… Read More
2022-03-08 16:43
Fed tightening, war in Europe, skyrocketing energy prices: what else can be thrown at the S&P? The Nasdaq is already in bear market territory. Will the S&P 500 follow? With only 10 d… Read More
2022-02-22 04:33
The rumblings of war in Europe grow louder. Vladimir Putin’s decision to recognize the two breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent territories adds to growing evidenc… Read More
2022-02-10 20:33
Soybeans started today’s session strong. Follow-through buying from yesterday’s bullish World Supply & Demand Estimate (WASDE) release sent prices right through last May&rsqu&hell…Read More
2022-02-05 22:30
March T-note futures fell hard on Friday following the release of a better-than-expected jobs report. Non-farm payrolls rose 467,000 – roughly triple what the market was expecting. Pri… Read More
2022-02-01 08:38
“Don’t fight the Fed,” should be the operative rule in the S&P 500. Jerome Powell and Company signaled they were going to take the free-money punch bowl away. The told… Read More
2022-01-24 19:26
The S&P 500 is getting absolutely crushed as we write this 2 hours before the close on Monday. The CME E-mini futures just bounced from a low of 4212 – a decline of 4% from... Read… Read More
2022-01-13 15:36
Bitcoin tested and bounced from previous support levels at $40,000 on Friday. It followed through to the upside on Monday, closing above Friday’s high, and rallied again on Tuesday, cl… Read More
2022-01-10 02:03
Volatility is not always bad, especially when it comes to options, and particularly when markets are volatile in the direction expected. The Fed announced it was tightening policy at its mee… Read More
2021-12-22 02:26
“Don’t fight the Fed,” has been a winning mantra since the Financial Crisis of 2008 / 2009. The Fed made stocks the only game in town when it lowered short-term interest ra… Read More
2021-12-15 21:28
Get ready for Season 3 of “Covid Catastrophe,” the dystopian series that everyone is being forced to watch. Season 1 saw the virus invade the world, disrupt the global economy an… Read More
2021-11-22 23:29
Traders call the Australian dollar a “commodity currency” because its economy is heavily dependent on natural resources. Australia is the number 1 exporter of iron ore, the 2nd l… Read More
2021-11-08 22:10
The Consumer Price Index is soaring, pushing prices up over 5% on an annualized basis. This is a 13-yr high. Wages in hospitality industries, like hotels and restaurants, are up 7.6% over th… Read More
2021-10-11 16:21
Covid cases are declining, and with them, the fear of another disruptive slowdown. Inflation is getting all the press – especially energy price inflation. This increases the odds that… Read More
2021-10-05 21:44
Shortages and rising prices define today’s economic reality. Crude oil is up 106% since last October, and recently hit a 7-year high. Natural gas is up 131% and hit a 10-year high. Con… Read More
2021-09-03 14:58
Strong demand continues to drive the price of essential goods higher. The average price of a home is up 18.6%. The price of gas is skyrocketing. So are the costs for basic staples like grain… Read More
2021-08-20 13:19
Micro Bitcoin futures (symbol MBT), which cover 1/10th of a bitcoin, give traders and speculators a way to manage bitcoin exposure in smaller, more manageable chucks. Because it is just as e… Read More
2021-08-06 15:44
OPEC and its big-producing ally, Russia, have masterfully managed the price of crude oil throughout the entire Covid crisis. Coordinated supply cuts fueled an incredible 1,084% gain in front… Read More
2021-07-13 04:02
Speed defines modern markets. Changes in sentiment manifest themselves instantly and get discounted by price movements almost as fast. 10-year Treasury Notes yielded 1.73% three months ago… Read More
2021-06-28 05:57
Much needed moisture across portions of the American grain belt weighed on soybean futures last week. Prices plummeted, bashing soybean bulls in the process. Front month futures finished the… Read More
2021-06-10 02:02
Prices are rising. Crude is up over 100% from November. Corn, soybeans, cotton and coffee are soaring, with gains approaching 50% or more. Gasoline costs roughly $1.02 per gallon more than l… Read More
2021-05-21 15:26
Summer is right around the corner, and with it a “make-or-break” time for corn and soybeans. Prices tend to rise in spring planting season as traders and end users attempt to acc… Read More
2021-05-06 20:04
Inflation seems to be everywhere. Home prices are soaring. Key commodities like corn, soybeans, and wheat are approaching contract highs. Lumber is setting new records almost by the day. The… Read More
2021-04-21 03:21
Mix free money with a global pandemic, and you have the ingredients for a major market meltdown. It may not happen today, or tomorrow, or even this year. But if history is any guide, it... R… Read More
2021-04-06 21:55
Current mark-ups (known as “premiums”) mean gold needs to rally $200 per ounce and silver $11.52 per ounce from current levels before coin investors see a dime of profit. Preciou… Read More
2021-03-26 15:52
A big rally in American 10-year T-note yields and the inability of the European Union to vaccinate its population have taken their toll on the common European currency, halting the slide in… Read More
2021-03-11 01:22
Big production cutbacks by mega-producers Russia and Saudi Arabia lit a fire under the oil market to start 2021. Now that these cuts have achieved their objective and prices have risen to $6… Read More
2021-02-24 18:41
Cheap money encourages wanton financial behavior, such as borrowing for no real reason other than pure speculation. Cut-rate cash created by zero interest rates is the rocket fuel powering T… Read More
2021-02-12 00:34
The USDA released their monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) Report on Tuesday. It showed world stockpiles of soybeans down a massive 77% from the 2019/2020 crop ye… Read More
2021-02-02 21:56
The Reddit revolutionaries may have leveraged the Internet to change the investing game in heavily-shorted shares like GameStop (GME), but they bit off too much when it came to silver. Small… Read More
2021-01-13 04:57
Something strange has happened the past few days: long-term interest rates are rising as stock prices are falling. This is opposite the classic “risk on”/ “risk off”… Read More
2021-01-05 16:55
Buoyed by “rock star” shares like Tesla, Amazon and Apple, big stock market averages have been getting nearly all of the end-of-the-year press. But the best performing asset clas… Read More
2020-12-28 17:21
Exploding Chinese demand, a disappointing North American harvest and drier-than-normal conditions across key soy-producing areas of Brazil and Argentina have provided the fuel for the ongoin… Read More
2020-12-10 14:31
Money is a commodity and like any commodity, it responds to supply and demand. Interest rates measure the price of money. The short-term cost to borrow dollars from the US Federal Reserve is… Read More
2020-11-17 14:37
Soaring from a low of $3.09 per bushel on Fed stimulus and Chinese demand following March’s coronavirus outbreak, corn came within 7 cents of our upside objective of $4.35 per bushel l… Read More
2020-11-13 03:14
Many commodities have switched from bear to bull markets over the past 6 months. If you follow us, you know we have been banging the commodity drum for at least the past two years. Our... Re… Read More
2020-10-27 15:46
When the world’s largest exporter of soybeans wants to import them, it’s time to sit up and take notice. Population-heavy China is in a hurry to rebuild a domestic hog herd decim… Read More
2020-10-12 00:42
Soybeans hit our upside target of $10.60 per bushel last week, supported by Chinese demand and buying from large commodity funds. Corn and sugar have not hit our upside targets yet, but are… Read More
2020-09-29 23:58
We may have been young during the assassinations and rioting of the late Sixties and early Seventies, but we were definitely old enough to know what was going on. The Vietnam War caused a hu… Read More
2020-09-17 17:42
Strong Chinese demand, deteriorating crop conditions in the US, and a weak US dollar have helped to push the prices of corn and soybeans above key resistance levels. This is setting the stag… Read More
2020-08-31 17:14
In our last blog post we asked the question, “Do surging soybeans indicate a sea change in commodities?” The answer appears to be “yes.” Soybeans surged as high as $9… Read More
2020-08-19 19:19
One of the most valuable signals of underlying change in a market is its reaction to news. A sharp decline following “bad news” can signal a scenario in which this bad news is al… Read More
2020-08-12 19:07
Interest rates measure the cost of money, which means they eventually help determine the cost of everything else. In “normal” markets, the cost of money is determined by th… Read More
2020-07-27 18:11
Gold hit our $1,920 per ounce target in overnight trading, slicing through its old highs of $1,923.70 in the process. This sets the stage for an assault on our next target of $2,180. Gold&rs&hell…Read More
2020-07-22 16:28
Silver has busted out, slicing through its 2016 high of $21.23. The poor man’s gold took out our first upside target of $19.25 per ounce on July 9. It is now within a stone’s thr… Read More
2020-06-09 14:18
Commodity markets often have seasonal tendencies due to planting cycles, weather and/or demand. Hog and cattle prices tend to peak in mid-summer during prime grilling season. Gasoline future… Read More
2020-06-04 15:11
There has been a lot of talk in the financial press about the shape of the COVID-19 recovery. “V” shapers view the huge 38% rally in the S&P 500 as predictive and a solid sig… Read More
2020-05-19 17:39
Silver is finally gaining on gold, reversing nearly all of its richer cousin’s gains since silver’s coronavirus collapse. It took 125 ounces of silver to buy one ounce of gold ba… Read More
2020-05-05 14:27
Soybeans were a bargain when we wrote about them in early March. We believe they still are. Soybeans have labored under the deflationary conditions plaguing the rest of the agricultural comm… Read More
2020-04-21 17:20
Silver is known as “the poor man’s gold” because it has always been cheaper than its yellow cousin due to its relative abundance. There is approximately 19 times more silve… Read More
2020-04-07 18:18
Crisis creates opportunity. Reason often gets tossed out the window when fear fills the minds of traders. We’ve already seen this happen in a number of commodities including gasoline… Read More
2020-04-07 15:18
Gold blew through tough resistance at $1,700 per ounce yesterday and came within less than $8 of our $1,750 target price in overnight price action. $1,742.50 is now the new swing high for th… Read More
2020-03-24 19:16
The chart below is the perfect illustration of why we love options — especially in this climate of heightened fear. RMB Group trading customers and readers who have been following our… Read More
2020-03-19 19:21
People need to eat — sick or not — unemployed or not. Whether you are Asian, European, North American, South American, African or Australian, you need to eat. There are roughly 7… Read More
2020-03-16 14:05
Every crisis breeds opportunities. This one is no different. Fear overrides all in a crisis. This leads to dislocations that wouldn’t occur normally. Stock futures are limit down as we… Read More
2020-03-09 14:42
Abnormally low volatility was the major reason we suggested buying June $1.13 euro calls in late January. Extremely high volatility — signaled by the euro’s rapidly widening Boll… Read More
2020-03-02 18:09
Last week’s panic in stocks infected commodities as well. Concerns that the COVID-19 virus would cause a sharp slowdown in the global economy powered a “risk-off” washout t… Read More
2020-02-25 15:33
Natural gas below $2.00 is simply not natural. Its price has dipped slightly below $2.00 7 times since the mid-1990s. $2.00 natural gas has not been profitable in the past, and is certainly… Read More
2020-02-20 15:49
It didn’t seem possible this time last year but, yes, $2020 gold is no longer a “pie in the sky” number. The adage “good as gold” actually means something again… Read More
2020-01-31 15:24
It’s official: the UK is leaving the EU. And while the agreement gives both parties a year to work things out, the way business is done in Europe will change substantially. Most of the… Read More
2020-01-22 15:37
Last week was big for platinum group metals (PGMs). Stricter emissions standards in China proved to be the catalyst for a huge move in palladium. Palladium and platinum are critical componen… Read More
2020-01-14 19:02
“Bulls make money. Bears make money. Pigs get slaughtered.” You have undoubtedly heard this phrase before. Pigs do get slaughtered, but in pork-loving China and other parts of As… Read More
2020-01-08 15:29
Gold broke out to the upside on Monday, slicing through old swing highs of $1,565 per ounce, but silver and platinum are lagging. We do not believe this will last much longer. Gold is rallyi… Read More
2020-01-03 20:27
The overnight assassination of Iranian Quds Force Commander General Qassam Soleimani in a drone strike ordered by Donald Trump has changed the game in the Mid-East. History is replete with e… Read More
2019-12-20 18:56
Impeachment? Stocks don’t care. All major indexes greeted Wednesday’s historic news with a giant yawn and then promptly rallied, focusing on low interest rates and slow but stead… Read More
2019-12-16 19:23
Seven years of near-perfect growing weather combined with the ability of new variants of genetically-engineered corn to withstand higher temperatures and wetter conditions have been enough t… Read More
2019-11-25 17:02
What happened to volatility? We’ve been in the commodity business a long time and can’t remember seeing so many markets trading sideways at the same time. Has the 3rd impeachment… Read More
2019-11-13 15:31
Simpler is often better when discussing topics like fractional reserve banking, so let’s keep it simple. Investors put money into a bank. If it is a savings account or a CD, the bank p… Read More
2019-11-08 15:25
Big downward corrections over the past few days in gold and silver have driven prices down to just above key support. Gold settled yesterday at $1,466.40 per ounce, down 3% from last Friday… Read More
2019-11-05 16:25
Option prices are largely determined by volatility, which means quiet periods in markets tend to drive the cost of options down. In rare instances, options get cheap enough to justify buying… Read More
2019-10-15 15:01
The announcement of a potential trade deal sent the grain markets soaring on Friday (corn rallied a scorching 4.7%) as traders anticipated additional Chinese buying. China is expected to agr… Read More
2019-10-01 14:15
Perhaps the most interesting thing about Monday’s big sell-off in silver and gold is the lack of any fundamental reason behind it. The wire services blame a stronger dollar. Yet yester… Read More
2019-09-20 14:25
We knew it was coming… The correction in the precious metals we talked about in our last blog post is now a reality. As we mentioned in our last post, we believe these correctio… Read More
2019-09-04 18:05
Wow, that was fast! Silver is on a winning streak, gaining against its richer cousin almost by the day. Last night’s price action probed the area between $19.50 and $20.00 per ounce be… Read More
2019-08-27 19:39
Silver’s big “catch-up” rally appears to have begun. The poor man’s gold sprinted out of the gate this morning and hasn’t looked back, soaring as much as 52 cen… Read More
2019-08-23 19:17
These are critical times. The post-Cold-War era of cooperation that has provided much of the globe’s prosperity since the fall of the Berlin Wall is ending. What will replace it is cur… Read More
2019-08-07 17:34
It’s a big day in metals. The desire for an alternative currency not enmeshed in the Sino-American trade war has pushed the price of gold well past our second long-term objective of $1… Read More
2019-07-22 19:41
After months in the gutter, the poor man’s gold is finally “movin’ on up.” Silver popped nicely, rallying nearly 7.5 % from low to high over the past two weeks, beati… Read More
2019-07-16 20:03
Gold continues to impress. After breaking out by slicing through both key resistance at $1,377 per ounce and a 6-year high of $1,399 per ounce, the Midas metal has hardly backed off at all… Read More
2019-07-02 19:23
Firecrackers and bottle rockets aren’t the only things exploding this summer. Gold and corn and have already put on a show. The yellow metal rose 13.5% a month and the yellow grain soa… Read More
2019-06-25 15:32
That didn’t take long… Powered by the growing prospects of war with Iran, gold cut through its 4-year high of $1,378 per ounce like a hot knife through butter. Currently trading… Read More
2019-06-17 15:10
Tariffs, schmariffs… When it comes to the price of agricultural commodities, weather trumps politics every time. China’s retaliatory tariffs, a major source of pain for grains t… Read More
2019-06-04 15:18
Unfortunately for the bulls, gold has been anything but good. The Midas Metal has spent the last 6 years putting traders and investors to sleep. It has oscillated between a high of $1,434 pe… Read More
2019-05-29 14:48
“It’s getting late. Soon it will be too late.” That’s how we began last week’s blog post. We are now 8 days further into the planting season and the outlo… Read More
2019-05-21 15:38
It’s getting late. Soon it will be too late. Pounding spring rains and devastating floods have made it impossible for farmers to plant across wide swaths of the American grain belt. Sa… Read More
2019-05-14 15:26
Talk is cheap, especially when it comes to trade. Stock market bulls were confident that widely-expected trade deal between China and the US would be the catalyst that would spark a FO… Read More
2019-04-29 14:15
2019 has not been kind for natural gas. Crude oil prices may have soared but natural gas deflated, tumbling as much as 34% from its highs in mid-January despite increasing demand and histori… Read More
2019-04-23 19:23
If you’ve been wondering what has happened to volatility, you are not alone. One of the lead articles in today’s Wall Street Journal begins with: “An unusual period of calm… Read More
2019-04-22 07:39
Below is an interview conducted by RMB Group Senior Partner Steve Belmont with Barry Potekin, RMB Group Managed Futures Specialist SB: Barry, why don’t we start with a brief… Read More
2019-04-10 15:10
It is certainly possible. It costs roughly $5,000 to "mine" one Bitcoin. Bitcoin was trading well below this level just a few weeks ago and has rallied 20% to just above it now. Want to know… Read More
2019-04-04 15:43
Poor platinum. Once the king of precious metals, it has spent the last eleven years wandering in the wilderness, losing value in nearly every year to both gold and sister-metal palladium. We… Read More
2019-04-01 16:35
Silver can be frustrating for holders of the physical metal. Stuck in a sideways pattern since 2014, silver has been oscillating between support at roughly $14.00 per ounce and resistance at… Read More
