Since my previous post on momentum in commodities , the movement in commodities have proceeded pretty much as I had expected. On the successful break of $700/oz level, I had predicted higher prices this time around and sure enough gold December 2007 futures contract touched $848.50 on NYMEX (New York Metal Exchange) last week. Silver touched a high of around $16.20 / oz during Asian trading hours on 11/6, crude touched a high of $98.60/per barrel during the same time frame and USD weakened further against most major currencies.

Now I am sensing a loss in momentum in these markets and also the Yen has strengthened from around 115 to around 110.00 pretty sharply. I have a feeling this can adversely impact the carry trade (sell low interest Yen and buy high yielding currencies , commodities etc). As such we can see some profit taking/ fund liquidations in the commodity markets. I think any pullback in Gold around $750-$780/oz level would be an excellent buying opportunity, similarly pullback in Silver to $14.50/oz could be a good entry point for those who missed out the rally. Crude, I am not sure, it has already touched its inflation adjusted high whereas Gold and Silver are way off( around $2200/oz for Gold!!), I wouldn’t be surprised if crude oil stays range bound now and consolidates its gain for a while.

Some people may say these markets are getting ahead of themselves and fundamentals do not support these prices. There may be some validity to that reasoning, I am getting anecdotal evidences that high prices are causing lower demand for physical gold and attendance has thinned down in jewelery shops, particularly in major gold markets like India. This is bearish for the metals and the gold/silver bulls need to keep this in mind! Time to take some profit off the table, I know I am

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Since my previous post on momentum in commodities , the movement in commodities have proceeded pretty much as I had expected. On the successful break of $700/oz level, I had predicted higher prices this time around and sure enough gold December 2007 futures contract touched $848.50 on NYMEX (New York Metal Exchange) last week. Silver touched a high of around $16.20 / oz during Asian trading hours on 11/6, crude touched a high of $98.60/per barrel during the same time frame and USD weakened further against most major currencies.

Now I am sensing a loss in momentum in these markets and also the Yen has strengthened from around 115 to around 110.00 pretty sharply. I have a feeling this can adversely impact the carry trade (sell low interest Yen and buy high yielding currencies , commodities etc). As such we can see some profit taking/ fund liquidations in the commodity markets. I think any pullback in Gold around $750-$780/oz level would be an excellent buying opportunity, similarly pullback in Silver to $14.50/oz could be a good entry point for those who missed out the rally. Crude, I am not sure, it has already touched its inflation adjusted high whereas Gold and Silver are way off( around $2200/oz for Gold!!), I wouldn’t be surprised if crude oil stays range bound now and consolidates its gain for a while.

Some people may say these markets are getting ahead of themselves and fundamentals do not support these prices. There may be some validity to that reasoning, I am getting anecdotal evidences that high prices are causing lower demand for physical gold and attendance has thinned down in jewelery shops, particularly in major gold markets like India. This is bearish for the metals and the gold/silver bulls need to keep this in mind! Time to take some profit off the table, I know I am

The USD has been weakening for quite some time now. The last four years has seen a plunge of the order of 30 to 40% versus Euro, Canadian dollar, British Pound, Australian dollar and now the latest is the surge in Indian Rupee against USD. The decline in USD is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly for US firms which sell their software globally. To our clients in the US, European market, all of a sudden, has become more important.

Selling to Europe may be a good thing for our clients, but to us, it brings a different kind of challenge. A perfectly running software on English version of Windows 2003 all of a sudden starts behaving erratically, might even trigger a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death in Windows lingo). Some languages like Danish and French are more forgiving, whereas German and Hebrew (Israel) have given us some grief. Some of the Asian languages which use double-byte character set like Mandarin and Japanese are also challenging.

With bulk of our sales earlier being in North America, this wasn’t much of a problem, but as other markets become important to us, we are increasingly concerned about making our software ready for different locals. After all, our clients problems are our problems! We help our clients in growing their business, only then are we going to get more business from them, simple… you think

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The USD has been weakening for quite some time now. The last four years has seen a plunge of the order of 30 to 40% versus Euro, Canadian dollar, British Pound, Australian dollar and now the latest is the surge in Indian Rupee against USD. The decline in USD is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly for US firms which sell their software globally. To our clients in the US, European market, all of a sudden, has become more important.

Selling to Europe may be a good thing for our clients, but to us, it brings a different kind of challenge. A perfectly running software on English version of Windows 2003 all of a sudden starts behaving erratically, might even trigger a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death in Windows lingo). Some languages like Danish and French are more forgiving, whereas German and Hebrew (Israel) have given us some grief. Some of the Asian languages which use double-byte character set like Mandarin and Japanese are also challenging.

With bulk of our sales earlier being in North America, this wasn’t much of a problem, but as other markets become important to us, we are increasingly concerned about making our software ready for different locals. After all, our clients problems are our problems! We help our clients in growing their business, only then are we going to get more business from them, simple… you think