Are We Finally at an Inflection Point for Commodities?

• By the tickerspy.com Staff
• On 12:23 pm EDT, Friday October 16, 2009

Commodities are a tricky bet headed into the weekend.

Investors have been eying the dollar for weeks as its decline sent gold to all-time highs and helped oil boost its 2009 high-water mark. Last Friday, a Bloomberg poll showed analysts were mixed on oil prices heading into the weekend. Today investors are dumping oil stocks across the board, and while gold miners are averaging higher, a significant portion have dipped in the last week.

Meanwhile, the dollar is ticking higher against all major currencies, with the exception of the British pound. The CurrencyShares British Pound Sterling Trust (NYSE: FXB - News), iPath GBP/USD Exchange Rate ETN (NYSE: GBB - News), and PowerShares US Dollar Index Bullish (NYSE: UUP - News) ETFs are leading the Currency ETFs Index with fractional gains on a down day for the market.

The largest components of the Gold and Silver Stocks Index had a rather unimpressive week. Goldcorp (NYSE: GG - News) and Anglogold Ashanti (NYSE: AU - News) ahead only fractionally for the period, while Barrick Gold (NYSE: ABX - News) has turned negative. Newmont Mining (NYSE: NEM - News) is up by less than 1.5% in the last five sessions.

The recent surge in crude prices has helped tickerspy's seven oil-tied Indexes earn outsized weekly gains. All seven, however, are giving some back to end the week as oil falls from highs above $78 a barrel.

On Wednesday, we noted that recent runs by Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM - News), Suncor (NYSE: SU - News), and Penn West Energy (NYSE: PWE - News) could be slowed or reversed if the dollar showed strength. Sure enough, the latter two are dropping by -2% today. Exxon is slipping fractionally, while its Chinese counterpart PetroChina (NYSE: PTR - News) is off by more than -3%.

It will be interesting to see the trend in these sectors establish in coming weeks. As of this writing, all seven oil Indexes are among the top-35 tickerspy Indexes this week, averaging between 2.5% and 7.5% gains.

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