The Bad News Victims of 2008 are the
New Victors of 2009
Michael Shulman, January 5, 2009
Free Trading Guides
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The Bad News Victors—
Where to Go Long for 2009
CommoditiesCommodities hit everyone on the long and the short side this year unless they timed every trade perfectly. Many people went long too late, many people went short too early, me included. I thought commodities would break in Q2 and instead they went up—and they broke much later in the year.
The lesson here is how difficult it is to sort out how much of the price of a specific commodity was dependent on speculators and how much was from real demand. In 2009 I expect core demand to fall, but who knows how much of this is already built into commodity and stock prices.
Bottom line: Given the dollar should weaken by year-end, if there is a bias in the market in 2009, it will be to the upside. Check out the DB Commodity Index Tracking Fu (DBC) and the Select Sector SPDR Energy(XLE) for potential long-plays this year.
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