Gold price jumps to 3 month high

Hedge funds positioning themselves for further upside

With weakness returning to equities and crude oil on Monday, gold futures trading in New York attracted brisk buying from investors eager for alternatives amid all the market turmoil.

In afternoon trade gold for delivery in April, the most active contract, was exchanging hands for $1,129.30 an ounce, up $12 or more than 1% compared to Friday's close and at its its highs for the day.

Thanks to safe haven buying gold’s trading at a 3-month high and is now up 7.5% since hitting a near six-year low mid-December.

Across 24 commodity futures markets money managers entered a net long position for the first time in five weeks

Large futures speculators or "managed money" investors such as hedge funds dramatically raised bearish bets on gold during the final months of 2015. Net short positioning – bets that gold could be bought back at a lower price in the future – hit a record 2.4 million ounces during the final trading week of 2015.

This year however hedge funds have been non-stop buyers pushing overall positioning firmly back in the black. According to the CFTC's weekly Commitment of Traders data released on Friday speculators added to long positions – bets that prices will rise – and trimmed short positions, leading to a more than 10-fold increase in net longs.

Speculators also added 55% to net silver long positions while copper bulls came roaring back trimming overall short position by a third. Platinum longs were increased and shorts cut, but bullish palladium bets declined from the previous week. Both PGMs remain in small net long positions.

Across 24 commodity futures markets money managers reduced bearish bets, entering a net long position for the first time in five weeks according to data by Saxo Bank.

Better sentiment towards crude oil was the most notable feature of as bullish bets increased by 34% – the biggest percentage jump since 2010. Traders may be regretting the shift with US benchmark crude oil prices plummeting 6.2% to $31.50 a barrel on Monday.

At the start of the year, across all commodity futures net short positions increased to 112,000 lots, the highest since government records began in 2009.

Commodity Market Holiday Schedule 2016, LME COMEX NYMEX SHFE

Jan 01 2016	New Year's Day (Observed)	LME / COMEX / NYMEX / SHFE
Jan 18 2016	Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Observed)	COMEX / NYMEX
Feb 08 2016	Spring Festival	SHFE
Feb 09 2016	Spring Festival	SHFE
Feb 10 2016	Spring Festival	SHFE
Feb 11 2016	Spring Festival	SHFE
Feb 12 2016	Spring Festival	SHFE
Feb 15 2016	Presidents Day	COMEX / NYMEX
Mar 25 2016	Good Friday	LME / COMEX / NYMEX
Mar 28 2016	Easter Monday	LME
Apr 04 2016	Tomb-sweeping Day	SHFE
May 02 2016	Labor Day	SHFE
May 02 2016	Early May Bank Holiday	LME
May 25 2016	Memorial Day	COMEX / NYMEX
May 30 2016	Spring Bank Holiday	LME
Jun 09 2016	Dragon Boat Festival	SHFE
Jun 10 2016	Dragon Boat Festival	SHFE
Jul 04 2016	Independence Day	COMEX / NYMEX
Aug 29 2016	Summer Bank Holiday	LME
Sep 5 2016	Labor Day	COMEX / NYMEX
Sep 15 2016	Mid-autumn Festival	SHFE
Sep 16 2016	Mid-autumn Festival	SHFE
Oct 03 2016	National Day	SHFE
Oct 04 2016	National Day	SHFE
Oct 05 2016	National Day	SHFE
Oct 06 2016	National Day	SHFE
Oct 07 2016	National Day	SHFE
Nov 24 2016	Thanksgiving	COMEX / NYMEX
Dec 26 2016	Christmas Holiday (Observed)	LME/ COMEX / NYMEX
Dec 27 2016	Boxing Day	LME
Jan 02 2017	New Year's Day (Observed)	LME / COMEX / NYMEX / SHFE
* COMEX/NYMEX early closing on any business day preceding a holiday.

MCX / NCDEX Holiday Schedule 2016

Particulars	Date	Days	Morning Session (10:00 AM to 05:00 PM)	Evening Session (05:00 PM to 11:55 PM)
New Year´s Eve	01-01-2016	Friday	Open	Closed
Republic day	26-01-2016	Tuesday	Closed	Closed
Mahashivratri	07-03-2016	Monday	Closed	Open
Holi	24-03-2016	Thursday	Closed	Open
Good Friday	25-03-2016	Friday	Closed	Closed
Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti	14-04-2016	Thursday	Closed	Open
Ram Navami	15-04-2016	Friday	Closed	Open
Mahavir Jayanti	19-04-2016	Tuesday	Closed	Open
Maharashtra Day/ May Day (Labour Day)	01-05-2016	Sunday	Closed	Closed
Buddha Pornima	21-05-2016	Saturday	Closed	Closed
Ramzan ID (Id-Ul-Fitar)	06-07-2016	Wednesday	Closed	Open
Independence Day	15-08-2016	Monday	Closed	Closed
Ganesh Chaturthi	05-09-2016	Monday	Closed	Open
Bakri ID (Idu’L Zuha)	13-09-2016	Tuesday	Closed	Open
Gandhi Jayanti	02-10-2016	Sunday	Closed	Closed
Dussera	11-10-2016	Tuesday	Closed	Open
Moharum	12-10-2016	wednesday	Closed	Open
Diwali (Laxmi Puja)	30-10-2016	Sunday	Closed	Open from (5 pm to 9.00 - 9.30 pm)
Diwali - Balipratipada	31-10-2016	Monday	Closed	Open
Guru Nanak Jayanti	14-11-2016	Monday	Closed	Open
Id-E-Milad (Prophet Mohammad´s Birthday)	12-12-2016	Monday	Closed	Open
Christmas	25-12-2016	Sunday	Closed	Closed

INFOGRAPHIC: The periodic table of commodity returns

Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

At the beginning of each year, U.S. Global Investors puts out a fantastic visualization called the Periodic Table of Commodity Returns. This year’s version has an interactive design that allows users to sort returns by various categories including returns, volatility, and other groupings.

For those keeping score, 2015 was a historically bad year for commodities in almost every regard.

Base Metals: The fact that lead was the best performing commodity with -3.5% returns throughout 2015 is not a good sign. However, compared to its fellow base metals such as copper (-26.1%), zinc (-26.5%), aluminum (-17.8%), and nickel (-41.8%), lead did wonderfully in comparison.

Precious Metals: Gold held in there as a relative top-performer with only a -10.4% dip. That said, it’s started off 2016 with a nice rally so far. Silver, platinum, and palladium did worse in 2015, all returning -11.8%, -26.1%, and -29.4% respectively.

Energy: The worst performing commodity of 2014 was the second-worst performing commodity of 2015. Oil was been routed in the last two years, with -45.6% and -30.5% returns respectively. Other fossil fuels have followed, with natural gas (-19.1%) and coal (-10.8%) both losing ground in 2015 as well.

Food: Corn was among the “best” performers, returning -9.6%. Wheat struggled more throughout 2015, returning -20.3%.

Deflating commodity prices also compounded with a strengthening dollar to hit currency markets hard, allowing Bitcoin to become the best performing currency of 2015 by far. Countries heavily reliant on commodity exports such as Canada, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Australia, Norway, and South Africa had their currencies hammered in relation to the U.S. dollar.

Crude oil prices fall as much as 20% since beginning of the year

Crude oil prices continued a relentless dive early on Tuesday, falling as much as 20 per cent since the beginning of the year as analysts scrambled to cut their 2016 oil price forecasts and traders bet on further price falls.

US crude West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was trading at $30.98 per barrel at 0311 GMT on Tuesday, down 43 cents from the last settlement and more than 19 per cent lower than at the beginning of the year. WTI has shed over 70 per cent in value since the downturn began in mid-2014.

Brent crude futures fell 43 cents to $31.12 a barrel. Earlier they declined to $31.08, their lowest since April 2004. Brent has fallen 20 per cent in January and, like WTI, has declined on every day of trading so far this year.

Traders take record short positions

Trading data showed that managed short positions in WTI crude contracts, which would profit from a further fall in prices, are at a record high, implying that many traders expect further falls (see chart).

Analysts also adjusted to the early price rout in the year, with Barclays, Macquarie, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Standard Chartered and Societe Generale all cut their 2016 oil price forecasts on Monday.

"A marked deterioration in oil market fundamentals in early 2016 has persuaded us to make some large downward adjustments to our oil price forecasts for 2016," Barclays bank said.

"We now expect Brent and WTI to both average $37/barrel in 2016, down from our previous forecasts of $60 and $56, respectively," it added.

$10/barrel?

But it was Standard Chartered that took the most bearish view, stating that prices could drop as low as $10 a barrel.

"Given that no fundamental relationship is currently driving the oil market towards any equilibrium, prices are being moved almost entirely by financial flows caused by fluctuations in other asset prices, including the USD and equity markets," the bank said.

"We think prices could fall as low as $10/bbl before most of the money managers in the market conceded that matters had gone too far," it added.

Market Massacre: Worst Ever First Week Of Trading

This was the worst first week of the year for US equities... ever!

Dow... (even worse than 2008)

S&P...

Europe was a disaster...

And epic for China...

And while only Trannies are in a bear market (down 20%) in the US, these 7 developed world markets are already there...(h/t SocGen's Andrew Laphthorne)

Commodities were very mixed this week...

Gold rallied 4% this week - its best 'first week of the year' since 2008... (best week in 5 months) - breaking 2 key technical levels...

Crude down 5 days in a row touching a $32 handle at the lows... biggest weekly drop since Nov 2014

Buy & Hold Investors of MANIPULATIVE Stocks in India -This Happened in Year 2015 ,Same will be Repeated in 2016 too.