Author: shyam

If gold is a Monte Carlo casino, silver is a slot machine in Las Vegas.

Silver is smaller than many other markets, which means it scares off some larger investors who might otherwise step in to temper big moves. Gold has nearly four times the amount of tradeable futures contracts as silver. The value of new gold supply last year was $217 billion, with 17% of the total supply held by the world’s central banks and multinational financial institutions. By comparison, the new supply of silver amounted to $49 billion in 2010, according to GFMS Ltd., a London-based metals consultancy. And less than 5% of silver is held by central banks and institutions, analysts estimate.

via Silver’s Brutal Collapse Hammers Traders and Solo Investors – WSJ.com.

Are futures markets necessarily evil? An interesting comparison between onions, that don’t have a futures market vs. oil, that has a really deep one.

FT Alphaville » Onions vs speculators.

In interviews with more than two dozen fund managers, bankers and traders, no clear cause emerged for the plunge in price. Market players were unable to identify any single bank or fund orchestrating a massive sale to liquidate positions, not even an errant trade that triggered panic selling, as seen in the equities flash crash last May.

Rather, the picture pieced together from interviews on Thursday and Friday is one of a richly priced commodities market — raw goods have been on a five-month winning tear over all other major investment classes — hit by a flurry of negative factors that individually could be absorbed but cumulatively triggered a maelstrom.

Computerized trading kicked in when key price levels were reached, accelerating the fall.

“It was a domino effect,” said Dominic Cagliotti, a New York-based oil options broker.

via Special report: What really triggered oil’s greatest rout | Reuters.

“The reality of risk is much less simple and straightforward than the perception. People vastly overestimate their ability to recognize risk and underestimate what it takes to avoid it; thus, they accept risk unknowingly and in so doing contribute to its creation.

“Risk arises as investor behavior alters the market. Investors bid up assets, accelerating into the present appreciation that otherwise would have occurred in the future, and thus lowering prospective returns. And as their psychology strengthens and they become bolder and less worried, investors cease to demand adequate risk premiums. The ultimate irony lies in the fact that the reward for taking incremental risk shrinks as more people move to take it.

via Hussman Funds – Weekly Market Comment: The Menu – May 9, 2011.