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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (38419)	9/18/2003 5:42:14 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 74559

After the round of negotiations in Cancun, I was laughing here last weekend reading how surprised the press was with the new found assertiveness of the likes of South Africa, Brazil India and China, a bag of cats of disparate interests. Canadians and Australians were, most likely, laughing too. Reason is, you don't find commodities in Switzerland and Luxembourg. And the guys who can possibly profit from them -IF THIS IS NOT A BUBBLE IN THE MAKING- are exactly the rag bag of countries vociferous against the OECD's agriculture hand outs. A big future for commodities. By Kevin Morrison and Deborah Hargreaves Published: September 17 2003 20:34 \| Last Updated: September 17 2003 20:34 The rallying cry among some floor traders in the Chicago grain futures trading pits - "Beans in the teens" - recalls the days in the 1980s when soyabean prices went through the roof. Today soyabeans, at just over $6 a bushel, are some way off those highs. But after a summer of drought, future prices for many other agricultural products are rising sharply. It is not just crop prices that are buoyant. Across a range of commodities, world prices for raw materials are hitting levels not seen in years or, in some cases, decades. Investors are buying record volumes of commodity futures, as even traditionally conservative pension funds are starting to dip a toe into the commodity markets. Many investment banks are expanding their commodity trading desks. New investment funds are being set up. Hungry China sets the price In the past three years, China has had an explosive impact on the global commodities market. Read This activity raises a question: is the commodities market witnessing a cyclical upturn, in part by capturing temporary flows from investors disgruntled with traditional assets? Or is there a structural shift under way that will keep prices high over the longer term? To some, the enthusiasm suggests a speculative bubble that recalls the late-1990s dotcom mania for media and telecommunications stocks. Others, however, identify a underlying, longer-term trend in which commodities are re-emerging as a strong alternative asset class, driven in part by a recovery in the global economy and the emergence of Asian economies - in particular China - hungry for raw materials. "Commodities are a big new investment theme," says Michael Hughes, chief investment officer at Baring Asset Management. "The trend for the next five to 10 years will reverse the downward trend of the past 20 years." Hugh Hendry, partner at Odey Asset Management, which launched a commodities hedge fund a year ago, agrees. "There have been five bull markets in commodities in the past 100 years," he says, "and this is a big one." Tangible assets such as gold and oil have always offered security in times of economic and geopolitical uncertainty. Moreover, having been overlooked during the strong bull market for equities in the 1990s, commodities have until recently provided a higher relative return over equities since the equity bear market began in March 2000. Bond prices have also fallen from their postwar highs in June, as economists predicted that the bottom of the interest rate cycle has been reached after the Federal Reserve cut rates to 1 per cent on June 25.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (38419)	9/18/2003 7:54:51 PM
From: pezz	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 74559

Well I couldn't find any news so as long as the drivers remain in place todays volume wuz consistent with the idea that this is a normal correction that a stock that has risen 7 fold in about 4 mos could have. I do not subscribe to the theory that a major decline without news means that somebody "knows" something. It's possible that we may see a weak opening tomorrow morning followed by a bit of a rally in the coming days as we are surely oversold. But often major damage to the chart such as this means a base that will need some time to work it's way through...Nonetheless if I weren't already overweighted here I would be a buyer... Thus at this time I do not intend to sell into any rally. ASTT wuz the only bright spot in a bad day.