silver lining up 7%

In this morning and had to tap the screen just to see if was still awake as the metal prices had not moved overnight (that continued all day). James Mackintosh, the Short View columnist for the FT pointed out that the first half of 2014 has been a vintage period for investors as despite the politico economic events it is the first year since 2003 that  bonds, developed and emerging market equity indices and commodities and other indexes had all given a positive return. There have been four instances in the past 30 years where this has occurred and carried on till the year end.

The metals individually have been mixed, the risers ni 30% (LME stocks up 16%); gold 9%; al 6%; sn 1% while falling pb 2%; cu 6% and iron ore 30%. When you write things like this it means a month end is approaching and news is thin on the ground. At this time of the year the northern hemisphere traders are pulling out the beach towels. Another big loser is the Baltic dry freight index down 61% as China slows so does the flow of cargoes. However, there is always cu news about though more and more to do with tax issues. Today it is the dispute between Zambia and First Quantum over value added tax rebates. The company says the tax dispute is slowing down or delaying over US$ 1 billion of planned capital investment in the country, and they are the largest tax payer. The US data strengthened the camp that believe the Fed will hold off any rate move until 2015.

Perhaps the first Jul data, German GfK consumer confidence grew to 8.9 (Jne 8.3). There was a significant downgrade in US Q1 annualised GDP to minus 2.9% from -1%, as statisticians understand the impact of the Polar Vortex better. As we have recently Q2 has shown a significant upswing. Furthermore overtime adjustments to original US data can be bend the actuals out all proportions to the immediate release.  The personal consumption rose 1% adjusted from previous 1.3%. Finally, May durables goods orders fell 0.1% (Apr 0.8%) and ex transport also -0.1% (0.4%).