Bearish USDA reports sent grains tumbling today. CBOT December corn futures fell the maximum exchange limit of 30 cents, or 4.6 percent, to $6.205 a bushel. The July contract plunged as much as 12 percent. September wheat futures slid to $6.1425 a bushel intraday, the lowest price  since July 29, 2010. The contract settled at [...]

Commodities overall had a great year in 2010, outperforming other asset classes.  While gold stole the spotlight, palladium was actually the top gainer, on track for a gain of 95 percent. Cotton was up 93 percent and silver was up nearly 84 percent. See this chart of YTD performances, courtesy of Finviz.

In this CNBC appearance, our Senior Market Strategist Richard Ilczyszyn discusses how investors can get involved in the exploding commodity markets without overleveraging themselves and getting burned, and how futures can be a part of even a smaller investor’s portfolio. If you are looking for exposure to gold, he said the CME Group’s new E-micro [...]

Gold has been hovering near new record highs and is currently trading above $1,248 an ounce, but remains influenced by the “risk-on, risk-off” trade. Do gold and other precious metals still represent value for investors who haven’t yet purchased them? Lind-Waldock Senior Market Strategist Richard Ilczyszyn and MF Global Analyst Tom Pawlicki share their thoughts [...]

by Mark Sachs It’s been a frustrating and volatile year for stock market investors. Just when we thought we were out of the woods after the financial market crisis, trouble in the Eurozone reintroduced the possibility of a global double-dip recession. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 fell into [...]

Commodities are on the move! Scorching temperatures in Eastern Europe have pushed CBOT wheat futures above $7 a bushel, the highest price since 2008. During July, wheat prices advanced 38 percent, the biggest monthly gain since 1973. Corn and soybeans also piggybacked onto the rally. In the softs space, coffee futures hit a 12-year high, [...]

by Mark Julias We have certainly seen a lot of action in the markets over the past month! The S&P 500 has corrected more than 10 percent, the euro hit a new four-year low, and we’ve seen the worst oil spill in U.S. history, surpassing the Exxon Valdez disaster in March of 1989. For traders, [...]

by Jeff Friedman No matter what type of trader you are or how much capital you have, I believe there is one thing that is more important to your long-term success than anything else. This “Holy Grail” of trading is money management. It takes discipline, but good money management can mean the difference between success [...]

Futures Forecast for December: Holiday Sales, Profit-Taking Could Tame Bulls in December by Jeff Friedman The end of the year is looking a lot brighter for investors than it did at the start, with gains in stock indexes as well as most commodities accelerating in the second half. As we come to the end of [...]

Thoughts on Natural Gas by Matt Krupski Natural gas futures fell to a seven-year low after the release of weekly inventory data from the Energy Information Administration. NYMEX September futures slid under $3 per million British thermal units. The question is, how low can natural gas go? The EIA reported an injection into storage of [...]