OIL: The Buy Of 2012

Daniel Moser submits: Copper fundamentals were bullish in 2010 and look to remain that way throughout 2011. Let's go over some basic supply and demand.Supply:Global production of copper was 18,256 (Kt) in 2009 and increased to 19,152 (Kt) in 2010. While this was a 5% to 6% increase year over year (depending on how you account for the “disruption allowance” factor) it is below the market expectation for production growth which was 8%.

One catchy investing maxim that’s popular this time of year is “sell in May and go away,” the notion that investors should cash in their investments and take the summer off. Historically, this hasn’t been a bad strategy. You can see from this chart that June, July, August and September have been the worst four months of the year for the S&P 500 Index since 1988.

West Texas Intermediate crude fell for the first time in four days before government data that may show U.S. stockpiles rose from an 82-year high. Saudi Arabia increased production to the most in five months.

By CommodityHQ: As markets re-open their doors on Halloween, investors will be scrambling to make up for lost time. But while today’s trading will be in a frenzy, we wanted to take Halloween day to look back on some of the more frightening commodity performances over the past few years. We found three of the worst commodity ETFs in the trailing five years to give you your share of terror on this holiday.

By Arie Goren:Crude oil is the most important and by far the most traded commodity. How important crude oil really is for traders is something that can be deduced from the popular commodity index S&P GSCI (GSC). This index is a world-production weighted index that is based on the average quantity of production of each commodity in the index,based on available data over the last five years.

Irfan Chaudhry submits: Crude oil has always been an important portfolio diversifier. This historical diversification benefit increased even more in 2009 / 2010. With Federal Reserve Bank of US pumping more money into the system, the crude oil price is likely to head higher which may provide the investors return enhancement besides portfolio volatility reduction in 2011.

Article written by Prieur du Plessis, editor of the Investment Postcards from Cape Town blog. This post is a guest contribution by Dian Chu, market analyst, trader and author of the EconMatters blog.

ETF Database submits: Over the past few months, most asset classes have risen on hopes that the global economy would be able to avoid a return to recession thanks to increased growth from emerging markets. Unfortunately, back in the U.S., GDP growth is much harder to come by, as high budget deficits have combined with minimal levels of job creation to create a gloomy investment climate.