Currency exchange traded funds have seen rising investor interest in 2011 but inflows have cooled over the past month as investors worried about global debt jitters pile into precious metals ETFs, particularly gold.

When it comes to investing in precious metals, most investors tend to focus on gold and silver. With gold in the midst of a multi-year bull market, and trading at $1,600 and ounce, the yellow metal gets most of the media attention. Headlines like ‘Gold

What the heck happened to Stillwater Mining (SWC)? This company is the largest US miner of palladium and platinum. While many analysts are still predicting supply deficits for platinum and palladium, this stock totally collapsed earlier this month.

The demand for electricity continues to grow in China as surging economic growth creates a rising middle-class. With the largest population in the world, naturally the growing number of middle-class Chinese consume more energy.

Copper remains an interesting market, with the red metal actually eking out a fractional gain on the week even with other risk assets falling. As we predicted, Managed Money has regained a fondness for copper. However, much to our dismay, the increased interest by speculators is not having nearly as dramatic an effect on prices as we would have hoped.

For the past week or two, the price of platinum at the NYMEX futures exchange has gone into repeated transient episodes of backwardation. As this author has explained in past articles, backwardation in a precious metal usually means that a shortage exists in the marketplace, and hidden momentum is building for a very strong upward movement.

One of the oft-cited reasons for investing in commodities is that they have historical returns comparable to stocks while having a low correlation to the stock market. The problem is that this statement is patently false.

While much has been discussed about the possible effects of the end of quantitative easing, the market’s response so far has been incredibly unclear. In our opinion, markets have become schizophrenic, in that each market is having a different and contrary response to the end of QE2.

With an oil pipeline to the west coast, Canada's oilsands could be the big swing producer in the global energy market, says Ralph Glass, Director of Energy Valuation and Operations at AJM Deloitte, an oil and gas technical consulting firm.

I see this market unfolding according to script, "script" being what it does more years than not. There are no absolutes in the market, no guarantees. But many years unfold exactly as this one has, with a good rally continuing from the end of the previous year into the spring, hesitation, a pullback in the June Swoon, and a rally going into July 4th. It's what happens next that is most important.

Silver Wheaton’s (NYSE: SLW) shares have jumped in recent weeks and are trading above $33 currently. We saw a sharp mover higher […]

The world crude oil market has been rocked by the surprise announcement of the International Energy Agency (IEA) to release 60 million barrels of oil from member countries’ strategic petroleum reserves (SPR). The US led the effort by chipping in 50% of the planned release, while Japan, Germany, France, Spain and Italy are providing most of the rest.