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We are now witnessing one of the greatest commodity bull markets of all time.
Silver surged to $35 per ounce on Friday, quickly reversing a temporary setback the day before … cleanly piercing a 31-year high … and now trading just $14 shy of its all-time peak made during the notorious Hunt Brothers days of 1980.
Gold catapulted to $1,440 per ounce on Wednesday, an amazing 70 percent higher than its peak reached during those wild and wooly days of 1980.
Oil, which many “experts” said would never see $100 per barrel in this decade, has blasted through the $100 barrier like a Saturn V rocket, ending the week at $104.42 per barrel for West Texas Intermediate crude and nearly $116 per barrel for Brent.
Gasoline prices have jumped far more quickly than virtually any analyst expected — up by an average of 35 cents per gallon just since mid-February. Heating oil, jet fuel, and even ethanol prices are exploding higher.
Every commodity on the planet is either moving dramatically higher or getting ready to do so — industrial metals like copper, lead, zinc, aluminum, nickel … agricultural commodities, including soybeans, wheat, cocoa, coffee, sugar, and cotton … plus commodities that are traded more actively outside the U.S., such as steel, rubber, wool, and dozens of others.
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Jim Rogers puts it this way: “In bull markets, things go to prices which nobody can conceive of. I’m the bull, and I’m telling you, at one point I’m going to sell out and then they’re going double again. That’s what happens at the end of a bull market and that’s what’s going to happen at the end of the bull market in commodities.”
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Sean Brodrick, Weiss Research’s “Indiana Jones” of natural resources, takes it one step further: “Gold will catapult past $2,500. Silver will hit $50 near term and $100 long term. Sharp corrections? Absolutely! They are to be expected and even planned for. But this is no ordinary bull market in commodities. It’s a commodity supercycle that can greatly exceed anyone’s projections in terms of how far — and how fast — prices can go.”
Whether you agree or disagree, and whether you’re personally profiting from this trend or not, the present realities are undeniable:
Commodity prices are rising in all categories and doing so very swiftly. Global inflation has jumped in nearly every major emerging market, and is now starting to do the same in advanced countries as well. Most important, as a part and parcel of this megatrend, the U.S. dollar is crashing — even against fundamentally weak currencies like the euro.
You can see this all this clearly now. So can millions of global investors, who are making long-term, fundamental adjustments in their portfolios and moving massive amounts of money.
But, ironically, the one man who is more personally responsible for these price explosions than any other person on the planet is still in a state of shameless denial …
Fed Chief Bernanke Swears on a Stack
Of Bibles That His Massive Money
Printing Has Nothing To Do With It!
He proclaims his innocence in meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. He does it again before Congress, the financial press, and the world.
He would have you believe that this entire upsurge — encompassing or impacting 94 tradable commodities, at least 170 currencies, 195 countries, and the largest free markets on Earth — is all driven by peripheral, temporary factors.
Poppycock!
Again, let’s never lose sight the powerful facts I’ve highlighted here on several occasions.
One year ago, we showed you exactly what the Fed chief is doing in “Bernanke’s Running Amuck,” and pointed to the obvious result — a flood of dollars and surging precious metals.
Then, this past November, we warned you still again in “Fed money printing getting even wilder!”
Indeed, in the 219 years since the U.S. dollar was born, the United States has suffered through one massive flu pandemic, two great depressions, 11 major wars, and 44 recessions. But despite all those disasters, the U.S. government never abused its money-printing power … until, that is, Bernanke came along.
Like a mad counterfeiter cranking out mountains of $100 bills to feed America’s outrageous debt addiction, the Fed chief is literally running amuck.
Nothing like this has ever happened in the United States — even in response to other recent threats to the economy.
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Back in 1999, for example, when the Fed feared the Y2K computer bug would sink the banking system, Chairman Greenspan pumped in what experts thought was a huge amount of money.
Two years later, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Fed AGAIN pumped in what experts said was a huge amount of money.
But today, Bernanke’s new money printing makes those prior money-printing episodes look like a speck of dust by comparison.
Hard to believe? Then just look at the chart above. Or just consider the facts: From September 10, 2008 through the end of 2010, Bernanke increased the nation’s monetary base from $851 billion to $2.03 trillion. That’s an irresponsible, irrational, absolutely insane increase of 138.6 percent in just 27 months!
And now, even as commodities continue to surge on world markets, Bernanke is printing still more, flooding the economy with another $600 billion in funny money (QE2) … virtually promising a third money printing binge (QE3) … and saying absolutely nothing to discourage talk of a fourth round on the way (QE4).
The dangers for investors in this environment are both very frightening and very obvious:
- Plunging purchasing power of your money. What good is it to eke out modest gains in your stock portfolio if the value of the dollar is sinking at a far faster pace? And if it’s CDs or money markets that you prefer, how can you possibly earn enough in interest to compensate for the surging cost of everything from gasoline, groceries, health care, and college tuition?
- Vulnerable stocks. Any company that’s a big consumer of commodities and lacks the power to jack up its own prices will suffer a sudden profit squeeze. These can include transportation companies, construction companies, and retailers.
- Sinking bond prices. Regardless of the rating or the issuer, if you’re holding fixed-rate long-term bonds, you’re going to be caught between a rock and a hard place: If you decide to hold on, you’ll be stuck earning some of the lowest yields in history even as the purchasing power of your money sinks. If you decide to sell at the market, you will suffer an immediate loss that could wipe out two, three, or even four times your interest income for an entire year.
But at the same time …
The Profit Opportunities for
Average Investors Are Enormous
As an illustration, here’s a quick summary of Sean Brodrick’s latest dispatch on the current opportunity in silver.
“In the last 12 months alone, select silver stocks have surged by 104 percent, 275 percent, even 720 percent!
Good luck and God bless!
Martin