By Karl Heilman

St. LOUIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- The commodities price boom continues to provide momentum to the Exchange Traded Fund wave. Today, ETF Securities announced the offering of 29 new Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs) on the London bourse.

Seminar at BM&F discusses Public and Private Sector investment opportunities with the Chinese for the State of São Paulo

The Brazilian Mercantile & Futures Exchange hosted on Tuesday, August 29th, the seminar “Investment Opportunities in the State of São Paulo with Emphasis on Public-Private Partnerships”.

Silver has been range bound for the ladder half of this summer. We have seen a range between 11.75 - 12.75 traded for many weeks now. Today we had a dramatic move back to the lower end of that range and we are using this as an opportunity to buy long ahead of the bounce we are expecting. While metals have had a good run up in recent months this bull is far from dead.

December cotton futures on the New York Board of Trade have recently formed a descending triangle pattern on the daily bar chart. These triangles are usually bearish. Prices are in a two-week-old downtrend from the August high of 57.75 cents a pound. A bearish downside "breakout" from the descending triangle pattern on the daily chart would occur on a solid price move below technical support at the base of the triangle pattern, located at 54.00 cents in December futures.

By Charlotte Mathews

JOHANNESBURG (Business Day) -- The biggest events on global mining calendars this week will be the release of year-end results by resources giant BHP Billiton tomorrow and by platinum miner Impala Platinum on Friday.

Is your refrigerator running? If so, it should be running off propane. With the changes that occurred in the early part of the last decade, more refrigerators are utilizing hydrocarbons, specificially propane, to keep their contents fresh. As opposed to the old technology that ran off of choloroflurocarbons (CFCs), propane is much less damaging to the environment and far more energy efficient. Today, there are propane powered refrigerators that require as little power as a typical 15 watt lightbulb.

Option Queen Letter

By my calendar, we are deep into the “dog days of August.” And, with precious little time left for summer sun-frolicking and venturesome holidaying, we can confidently anticipate the further dry-up of volume, while the money-movers have slipped away to vacations, preparatory to calendar recognition that we're barking up the tree blooming in recognition of the pending EOS (end of Summer) Labor Day holiday. Now that the August options are history, players can leave the scene, knowing that little will change until they return. Remember, the Street lives with Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, although, in the interest of accuracy, we should now delete the Bears, in favor of the Bulls, because this is not the tale of Red Riding Hood----.

Rough Rice is one of the more obscure markets that we as commodities traders trade. It is obviously dominated by Asian influences more than any other. This year we have seen a dramatic drought in many of the rice growing regions across parts of Asia. Weather concerns can have a huge impact on agricultural markets as many of you know and this market is especially susceptible to an even more exaggerated move on these fears because it is so thinly traded.

The market is obviously stuck in a tight range and is looking to breakout to one side or the other. So which side is it going to be? There are several indications that the market may be headed toward new lows before the summer is over. What seems to be capping any attempt at a rally are a few factors. These include a war in Iraq, a Middle Eastern conflict between the Hezbollah and Israel, sustaining high energy prices, a slowing economy and a Federal Reserve that is complacent with tip-toeing around their true intentions regarding interest rates.

December gold futures on Monday dipped to a fresh two-week low of $634.10 an ounce, amid weaker crude oil prices and a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah. The bears have regained some fresh downside near-term technical momentum. The daily bar chart for December gold shows that a potentially bearish diamond pattern has formed. Diamond patterns usually form at market tops and are accompanied by choppy, up-and-down trading that forms the diamond.

USDA Crop Report Reveals Production Above All Estimates at 20.4

That production number of 20.4 million bales released this morning was a shocker! When I first heard it I immediately thought that perhaps something was wrong, but it wasn't. And since it wasn't, I then thought about what to expect when the market opened.

In setting up this trade we are looking to take advantage of a prominent support level near 575 which gives us an entry point very close to our sell stop, thus keeping our downside risk minimal. As the possibility of a short term pullback is quite plausible we recommend buying a short term at the money put instead of a stop to give us downside protection.

Euronext N.V., a holding company incorporated under Dutch law that operates through local subsidiaries, was formed on 22 September 2000 when the exchanges of Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris merged. The Euronext group expanded at the beginning of 2002 with the acquisition of LIFFE (London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange) and the merger with the Portuguese exchange BVLP (Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto).

If you have traveled overseas in the past few weeks you might have seen managing principal of Parrot Trading Partners, LLC, Jes Santaularia, on CNN International. Jes was featured on as part of a CNN International segment called, "Passion to Portfolio", featuring 13 entrepreneurs worldwide.

September U.S. Treasury bond futures at the Chicago Board of Trade on Wednesday tagged a fresh four-month high of 108 21/32, but then backed off the session high and were trading nearer the session low in morning dealings. Still, the bond market bulls have gained near-term technical momentum recently. Prices have been trending higher for five weeks, from the late-June low of 105 12/32. Price action Wednesday will be extra important for the bond market, from a near-term technical perspective.

After reaching record highs in 2004, milk has been in a steep downwards trend. Having just recently crossed below the $11 mark, class III milk futures are down 50% from their highs two years ago. With many farmers having increased their dairy cattle herd over the past few years in response to high prices, the industry is now suffering from an oversupply of this commodity. This has caused a correction unlike anything seen before in the industry.