Energy & Commodities

Propane Outpaces NatGas As Inventories Plummet To Dangerously Low Levels

Posted by Sumit Roy - Hard Assets Investor

on Wednesday, 29 January 2014 16:49

Another heating fuel has performed even better than natural gas.

While natural gas has been garnering the most headlines, it’s not the only commodity that’s been impacted by this winter’s extremely cold temperatures. Propane, another heating fuel, has also been spiking. Prices are up 64 percent from a year ago on concerns that stockpiles are falling much too quickly.

                                     Propane Prices

1 propanetechnicalchart

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1. Cable TV

Cable television’s heyday is over. Subscribers have been declining since 2004, and analysts say there’s no end in sight. Roughly 54.8 million households currently pay for cable TV, down 3.3% from 2012 and down 17.6% from a decade prior, according to research firm IHS. Cable companies are expected to shed roughly 1.3 million subscribers in 2014.

The decline is due in part to so-called cord-cutters: consumers who are canceling cable and transitioning to lower-cost services, such as Hulu and Netflix NFLX -1.13%  , which provide much of the same programming at a fraction of the price. Using an Internet connection, consumers can stream many cable shows, news programs and sports games, as well as movies, directly to their TVs. Some channels’ websites also provide viewers access to their shows. (MarketWatch recently launched a calculator — Are you ready to cut the cord? — that allows consumers to find the shows they normally watch through such lower-cost options.)

These services are mostly beneficial for people who do not mind watching shows after they’ve aired and are willing to part with most live programming.

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Why now’s the time to be bullish on gold-mining stocks.

Several weeks ago I bought the one asset that all investors seem to hate.

I bought some stock in gold mining companies.

No, I haven’t gone gold bug or paranoid. I’m not dressing up in camo or wearing tin foil on my head to stop radio waves from NSA satellites.

The actual cause was simple. Gold mining stocks had fallen so far out of favor that they had triggered the Bennett Rule—a rule named for my old friend, and money manager extraordinaire, Peter Bennett in London.

…continue reading HERE

Markets are diving after rate hikes in Turkey and South Africa – investors may think central banks have gone too far…..full article

Turmoil in emerging markets and a month of disappointing job growth at home are unlikely to deter the Federal Reserve from trimming its bond-buying stimulus on Wednesday, as Ben Bernanke wraps up his last policy meeting at the helm of the U.S. central bank.

Overall signs of improvement in the U.S. economy suggest Fed officials will stay on track to cut monthly purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities by $5 billion each, bringing the total of their monthly asset purchases to $65 billion.

It started by trimming its monthly purchases to $75 billion from $85 billion, and on Wednesday, the U.S. central bank is expected to shave another $10 billion.

“It’s clear the Fed wants to taper,” said Eric Stein, portfolio manager at Eaton Vance in Boston.

Even so, the Fed is nowhere near to making a decision to raise rates. Policymakers are expected to stick to their promise to keep rates near zero until well after the U.S. unemployment rate, now at 6.7 percent, falls to 6.5 percent. The Fed is set to announce its decision at 2 p.m. EST.

….more HERE

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