Chart of the day is............

.....the Palladium 30 day price chart.

There's a good reason for this. About four weeks ago I was asked for thoughts on Palladium. I wrote this post at the time saying I knew very little about the metal, but also put up a couple of charts with simple technical analysis comments. The LT charts suggested that Palladium would either hold $182/oz or slump to $100/oz.

As we can see from the chart here, that (self-confessed very tentative) call was so much crap. Moral of the story:

1) Don't read too much into a chart. The main problem with charts is that they'll fool you into seeing what you want to see. Most of the random walk problems stem from that.

2) Don't ask me about palladium. There's a very simple reason as to why I know more about the copper market than the palladium market. There's no palladium in Latin America* but there's a whole mountain range full of copper. For PGM, go ask a Russian.

3) Beware of people who proclaim to have the answer to all things market. I know a little bit about a little corner of the world and can read company reports because I was taught how to do it and have done it for lawd-knows how many years. Understanding balance sheets correctly allows you to note the financial wellbeing of a company, but it doesn't suddenly make anyone an expert on what that company does. In the same way you cringe when a pop-star starts explaining how to save the world, you should also see red flags when a banking analyst starts pontificating about a resources company and what its CEO is doing wrong. Horses for courses. That's all.

*ok...there's a little bit. But we're not talking ring of fire here

Dr Copper (or physician, heal thyself)

I could have sworn I saw $2.18/lb over the weekend.......

(yep, this is chart of the day)

The other base metals are coming along for the ride, too. There are even one or two that will start to become profitable to mine if this keeps up :-)

On the PM front, silver is again outperforming gold (and me with SLV at $9.70..woohoo!). And to show that blind charting and beginner's luck does count for something in this game, after calling present levels a bottom in Palladium two nights ago it's rallied 9%. I haven't followed it much, but I'd suppose the other "industrial PM" platinum has done the same....I really don't know, though.

Still largely cash, here. I may try a small trade or two today, but it will be strictly "take ST profits" stuff.

I was asked about Palladium..........

........but as the metal isn't big round these parts I don't really know much about it (apart from the basics...half of it comes from Russia and most of it ends up stuck in auto exhaust systems). However it does make a change from banging on about gold and silver all the time, so here are a couple of very simple charts.

This is the 1990 to present day chart

Gotta say it looks tempting round here......

This is the more interesting five year chart

.........what with oil getting cheaper and automakers likely to fight back worldwide. If you need more detailed info, I suggest Lucas over on this link...he knows far more about this kind of stuff than I do.