Palladium Perks Up

While we’ve already touched on gold moving to fresh all-time highs over the last two weeks, other precious metals are also catching a bid after a rough few years. 👀

Below is a chart that technical analysts have been eying this week as palladium futures attempt to reverse their downward course. The weekly line chart goes back to 2010 and shows prices bouncing back from the $800 to $900 region, which has served as a transition area for buyers/sellers over the last 14 years. 📊

Additionally, technical analysts say the relative strength index (RSI) shows momentum improving even as prices made new lows earlier this year. This is what they refer to as a “bullish divergence” and is often looked at as a signal of a coming trend reversal. 🔺

In addition to the improving price action and momentum, some traders say speculators are positioned poorly for this market, holding record short positions. That means commercial hedgers, who are the actual companies dealing with physical palladium on a daily basis, are loading the boat long. And they wouldn’t be doing that unless they had a hunch that prices were heading higher. 🤔

Now, commercial hedgers have very deep pockets and are often way early to trend reversals. But, analysts say the combined factors above paint a compelling case for prices to continue rising from here…especially if the rest of the precious metals space continues to perform well, too. 🤷

Learn More About...

The Base Metal Blues

The world’s eighth-largest aluminum maker, Alcoa, threw investors for a loop on Monday, unexpectedly announcing a new chief executive officer (CEO). 😮

Roy Harvey has led the company since November 2016, when it went public, and will remain a strategic adviser until the end of 2023. He’ll be replaced by William Oplinger, who has served as executive vice president and chief operations officer (COO) since February of this year.

Read It

Are Investors Sleeping On Commodities?

We know pulling people’s attention away from stocks is tough, especially when they’re rallying. But as we close out the week, we wanted to point out that many of this week’s top-performing assets were commodities.

The chart below from Finviz shows that nine of the top ten performers this week were commodity futures, with Natural Gas topping the list at +16.19%. 🤩

Read It

Crude Tops 90 As Inflation Ticks Up

Before we get into U.S. data, we need to discuss the European Central Bank’s (ECB) rate decision. The central bank surprised markets by raising rates another 25 bps to 4.00%, marking its tenth consecutive hike. 🔺

Unlike the U.S., Europe has not made as much progress in bringing down inflation, and its economy has not been as resilient. The region started raising rates later than the U.S. and experienced more direct impacts of the war in Ukraine, so it’s understandable that they’d be a bit behind the curve in making progress.

Read It