Tuesday, February 22, 2011

No Virginia, Even Though Wheat is Down 27 cents, This isn't the Big One

Yesterday we posted "Is it Time to Pull the Rug Out From Under the "Easy Money" Commodity Crowd?" positing a drop in equities that causes a flight to U.S. treasuries, necessitating a demand for dollars that causes dollar denominated  soft commodities to fall.

Today we see the Bloomberg headlines "Treasuries Rise as Protests, Violence in Libya Spur Demand for Safe Assets" and "U.S. Stocks Decline Amid Escalating Libyan Riots, Wal-Mart Sales" with the DJIA down 85 and wheat in Chicago down 3.2% at $8.2825.

All of which prompted a reader to ask if this was the "nobody gets out alive" drop that we mentioned yesterday.

The short answer is NO.
The longer answer is that this decline is setting up for a nice little move back up starting either tomorrow or Thursday.

But, just because I pontificate, does not make it a lock so as they used to say on Hill Street Blues:
"Hey, let's be careful out there."
[not the "Oh my Gawd! Here it is Christmas Eve, and I'm gonna get shot dead in a moose suit!" quote? -ed]