Industrial BellwetherThis quiz takes 1-10 seconds to answer. It’s 1 question.

Which industrial bellwether recently posted record second quarter profits, record sales and revenues and posted its fifth straight year of record profits?

 Boeing
 United Technologies (UTC)
 Caterpillar
 John Deere
This quiz powered by the Quiz Creator plugin for WordPress.How could a company (I can’t reveal the name now […]

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We reported the Peru mine worker strikes earlier this month, but it appears that the strikes are already coming to an end — without any immediate results. However, according to one article, “the government said it would re-examine miners’ pensions and its congress said it would reconsider a law limiting miners’ portion of shared profits […]

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We wrote in May on lead and last month on zinc, two metals that after years in the doldrums rose rapidly in price during 2006 to record highs in 2007, only to fall back over the last 6 months to levels not much above their historic norms. The rapid rise in price encouraged massive investment […]

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Once again rising near $1,000 an ounce — the same high prices that led some consumers to sell their gold jewelry and others to melt the kitchen sink — gold’s great heights on Tuesday were quick to fall as oil prices slowed the progress of gold and several other metals that were boosted Monday.
Gold hit that staggering […]

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Or so went JP Morgan’s statement to the US Congress in 1913. Apart from quoting that perceptive line, an article in MineWeb also covers a new report by Erste Bank of Austria that predicts the gold price will be $1200/oz by the end of the year and could exceed the inflation adjusted all time high […]

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What a mess the Chinese domestic coal industry is in. Criticized for an appalling safety record the government has made admirable strides in recent years to close the small and most dangerous coal mines. From 1995 to 2008 the number of mines has fallen by 80% to 16,000 today and at the same time the […]

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If the investors or speculators on the futures markets have been the prime movers in the price of commodities (and there are arguments for and against on their affect) then maybe the 3rd quarter could see a long awaited adjustment in metals, oil and agricultural commodities according to a Reuters report in Mineweb .
The main […]

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It’s an uncertain time in the freight market. Ocean imports are down, exports are up, domestic trucking is down in overall volume but up in intermodal as companies seek the economies of a rail/road mix at the expense of speed according to an article in Traffic World .
The problem comes from the inter related nature of […]

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Although metals and mining stocks have seen an average 40 percent appreciation since the beginning of the year, the same sector was hit with declines of approximately 16 percent during the past few trading days.
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Among the biggest decliners on the session were several metals and mining companies, even though […]

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The main plank for rising commodity prices and the basis for interest from the investor market has been demand from emerging markets, particularly Asia. Many analysts have seen the softening of demand in North America as being offset by a rising demand in Asia such that global demand will continue to outstrip supply for many […]

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