Futures Daily for Feb 14, 2013

Look at natural gas today! I don't think I've ever seen any commodity move nearly 4.5% in a single day before! Wheat, sugar, hogs, and silver are also big movers today! There is plenty of volatility!

Sugar Leaps, Struggles to Hold Gains

This chart doesn't look very good for further gains. I'm keeping tight stops on this one!

Sugar High! It May Be the Only One I Can Afford!

Ag Commodities Blasting Higher Again

Beef -- near limit up three days in a row

Pork

Sugar

Tight Supplies for Soft Commodities

from WSJ:
NEW YORK—A scarcity of commodities such as cotton, sugar and coffee that propelled prices to historic highs late in 2010 is expected to continue into 2011, and it could mean more prices increases for consumers.
Cotton, sugar and coffee are seen remaining in recent high price ranges as supplies remain low.
Cotton broke a post-Civil War record in December, as supplies from top producers failed to keep up with demand, particularly China's voracious appetite for the fiber. Cotton futures gained 91.5% for the year; the March contract closed 2010 on the InterContinental Exchange at $1.4481 a pound on Friday.

Sugar Collapses

This was a pretty hard fall!

Sugar intraday

Sugar daily

from Bloomberg:

Sugar futures plunged 10 percent as computerized trading triggered sales following an early slide spurred by bets that demand may ease on the heels of the rally in the second half of 2010.
“You had an initial movement that triggered a lot of stop losses,” or orders to sell when the price drops to a specified level, said Ricardo Scaff, a trader at Rabobank International in New York. “Some trading systems are automatic, and once they see the movement, they add to it.”
Raw-sugar futures for March delivery slumped 3.45 cents to settle at 30.38 cents a pound at 2 p.m. on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. The percentage drop was the biggest since Nov. 12. On that date, the commodity plunged 12 percent, the most since July 1988, as speculation that China would increase borrowing costs roiled commodity markets.
“A sell-off was expected at the end of the year,” said Mario Silveira, an analyst at FCStone Group Inc. in Campinas, Brazil. “No one thought it would be of this magnitude.”
Companies are switching to substitute sweeteners because of high sugar prices, Michael McDougall, a senior vice president at Newedge USA, said this week in a report. Yesterday, futures dropped 1.6 percent.
Yesterday, the price reached 34.77 cents, the highest since November 1980, as floods damaged crops in Australia, the world’s third-biggest exporter.
Brazil, Thailand
Anna Bligh, the premier of Australia’s Queensland state, said today that floods resulted in “a disaster that is going to run into the billions of dollars.” Adverse weather also has hurt crops in Brazil, the top exporter, and Thailand, the second-biggest.
In the second half of this year, sugar has jumped 89 percent, the biggest gain among 19 raw materials in the Thomson Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index. In 2010, the sweetener is up 13 percent. The price plunged 40 percent in the first half.
Refined-sugar futures for March delivery fell $65.10, or 7.9 percent, to $761.30 a metric ton on NYSE Liffe in London, the biggest drop since Nov. 12. The price jumped 62 percent in the second half of the year.
“There is a pullback in the market,” said Tom Mikulski, a senior strategist at Lind-Waldock, a broker in Chicago. “Also, there is bound be some profit-taking at this time of the year.”

Commodities Surge to New Highs

Grains have hit new 2010 highs today, especially corn and soybeans. Gold is above $1400/ounce again, and silver is also surging. Sugar just hit a new 29-year high. Cotton, after a limit down move yesterday, just erased all those losses! Copper just hit a new high also. Livestock futures are setting new records today also. Inflation is here, like it or not!
NYBOT weekly, daily chart:

NYBOT monthly chart -- higher than 2008 high!

Commodities Blast to new Record Highs

from Bloomberg Commodities:
Raw sugar rose to a 29-year high in New York on speculation supplies from India and Brazil, the world’s largest growers, won’t be enough to avoid a third consecutive annual shortage. Cocoa prices resumed gains.
Global output will lag behind demand by almost 3 million metric tons in the marketing year that ends Sept. 30, ABN Amro Bank NV and VM Group said Dec. 10, reversing an earlier forecast for a surplus. C. Czarnikow Sugar Futures Ltd. also forecasts a deficit. Raw sugar prices have jumped 23 percent this year.


NYBOT -- new 2010 high

Sugar -- new 29-year high

Cotton -- limit up, new all-time record high

Coming Off a Sugar High!

Sugar Surges to Another 30-Year High

Ah! The sugar high!

from FT:
The price of sugar has jumped to a 30-year high as the Brazilian harvest has tailed off sharply, hardening expectations of a shortage.
Traders believe that prices could soar over the coming months as the market faces a supply shortfall driven by smaller-than-forecast crops in important growing countries from Brazil to Russia and western Europe.
At the same time, inventories are at their lowest levels in decades. “All buyers we see are buying on a hand-to-mouth basis,” said Peter de Klerk of Czarnikow, the London sugar merchant.
That has pushed prices up sharply, with raw sugar futures in New York soaring 135 per cent from a low of 13 cents in May.
On Tuesday ICE March sugar rose 4 per cent to a peak of 30.64 cents a pound, surpassing the level reached in February and rising to their highest point since 1980, when prices jumped to nearly 45 cents.
The dramatic rise in sugar prices is causing headaches for policymakers. While sugar is widely available in the west and its price is rarely considered, it is an essential source of cheap calories in emerging economies, where surging sugar prices are driving food inflation.
On Tuesday India’s central bank raised benchmark interest rates for the sixth time this year in an attempt to curb inflation.
New Delhi has emerged as a crucial factor in the sugar market, as India’s harvest is expected to be large, but the government is still debating how much sugar to allow the country’s industry to export. Traders expect India to authorise exports of 1m-2m tonnes starting in December. Anything less, or even a delay to the decision, could send prices spiralling higher, traders warn.
“They need to start selling additional volumes by mid-December, otherwise the hole in the market is getting wider,” said Mr de Klerk.
The latest move up in prices was triggered by a spell of dry weather in Brazil, which dominates the global sugar trade with about half of world exports.
Unica, the country’s cane industry association, said last week that production was down 30 per cent in the first half of October from 2009, while Kingsman, a consultancy in Lausanne, has downgraded its forecast for the Brazilian crop by 2.3 per cent. “If Brazil is going to have a lower harvest it makes it that much harder to fill the deficit,” said Jonathan Kingsman.
Many observers believe Brazil’s sugar harvest will be smaller next year, as farmers are forced to replant ageing cane.
“For the sugar market, fear about Brazil is worse than fear about India, which drove the price to 30 cents last year,” Jean-Luc Bohbot, head of trading at Sucres et Denrées, one of the largest physical sugar traders, said last week.
“Anything affecting Brazil will have a direct impact on trade flows.”

Sugar Demonstrates Exhaustion Too

Sugar Continues Rise

This Is Either a Bubble or Budding Hyperinflation!

Sugar and cotton today skyrocketed. Sugar is now priced higher than at the peak of the 2008 commodity bubble, and cotton is very close to that level. Cotton has been limit up two days in a row!

NYBOT CCI Commodity Index daily, intraday

NYBOT CCI Commodity Index monthly - the prior peak was the 2008 commodity bubble!

Sugar daily -- 30% higher than the 2008 bubble!

Sugar weekly

Cotton daily

Cotton weekly

Sugar, Cotton Reverse, Move Higher

Sugar - moves powerfully higher - intraday

Sugar - daily

Cotton - limit up intraday

Cotton - limit up daily

Another Sugar Surge

It's Not Just Gold! Beans Above $11, Corn Above $5

Soybeans

Corn

Sugar

Repeat After Me: "There Is No Inflation!" "There Is No Inflation!"

Sugar daily chart

Cotton daily chart

If/when these bubbles pop, they will fall hard!

New Sugar High Too?

Who Says There's No Inflation?

Just look at these charts and tell me there's no inflation! These are all daily charts, so these prices have been rising for quite awhile! All have set new record highs today! And all of these commodity prices look even more startling on the weekly charts.

Gold

Corn

Sugar

Cotton

Coffee

Oats

Another New Sugar High

At what point does the high price kill demand?