Soybeans bullishness reasserts itself

Soybeans have been rising steadily for the past few days. The bullish trend in soybeans has reasserted itself strongly, and prices have risen to new highs ($11.22 today). Note in the graphic that the Klinger+ATR volume indicator (green and red in the bottom subgraph) has now turned bullish and has risen above the yellow trigger line, indicating a reassertion of the bullish trend in soybeans. It appears that prices in all the grains will continue to move up, notwithstanding the rally of the USD in recent days. The Fed better begin to worry about inflation again.

In the article below, you will see that the price of soybeans now appears to be linked to crude oil. With the resurgence of crude oil prices, both soybean and corn prices have exploded higher as well. The Bloomberg article suggests that prices may continue to rise unabated to at least $12/bushel, which will influence growers to plant more soybeans next spring.

I clipped this from Bloomberg:

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Chicago soybean futures rose to within 0.4 percent of a 34-year high and corn gained for a second day on speculation a rise in crude oil costs will buoy demand for the commodities to produce alternative fuels. Wheat also advanced.

Read the entire article here:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601012&sid=aCAme1lIrwjM&refer=commodities

Agricultural Commodity ETFs

I watch and trade the following ETFs, all tied to agricultural commodities. Anyone who is interested in profiting from the bullish trend in grains and softs may want to consider some of these. The first 3 letters on each line are the ticker symbols on the various U.S. exchanges. (Yes, MOO and COW really are their ticker symbols.) I have linked each one to the home page where you can obtain further information from the provider. They all include different baskets of commodities, so make sure that you do your research:

DBA Proshares Agriculture
JJG iPath DJ AIG Grains Total Return Sub Index
COW iPath DJ AIG Livestock Total Return Sub Index
MOO Market Vectors Agribusiness
JJA iPath® Dow Jones-AIG Agriculture Total Return

In addition to the above ETFs, which are traded on the American exchanges, there are group of superb ETFs traded on the London Stock Exchange. Unlike the American ones that I have listed above, each of these ETFs are linked to a single commodity. If the time comes that the world's various exchanges are linked together and I can trade them all, I will probably change from the above ETFs to these. They are provided by a company called ETF Securities in London. Their website is:

http://www.etfsecurities.com/

AIGA Agriculture ETF
COFF Coffee ETF
CORN Corn ETF
COTN Cotton ETF
AIGG Grains ETF
HOGS Lean Hogs ETF
CATL Live Cattle ETF
AIGL Livestock ETF
AIGS Softs ETF
SOYO Soybean Oil ETF
SOYB Soybeans ETF
SUGA Sugar ETF
WEAT Wheat ETF

Wouldn't it be nice if the American ETF provider companies would follow suit and give us similar choices? Then, I could trade commodities in my IRA account just as I do in my futures accounts. Note, however, that these LSE-traded ETFs are sometimes small and liquidity is not very good -- YET. I suspect that over time, liquidity will improve.