Friday Links: Invest in Yourself

End your week with some important financial news content from around the web.

Futures Links

Argentina lifts ban, to allow wheat exports this year (Economist)

The drought intensifies in the American West (WhiteWinterTweet)

North American cocoa grind increases 4.4% in Q4 2013 year-over-year (Reuters)

Is Palladium the metal to rise highest in 2014? (Futures Magazine)

Live cattle continues to push new record highs (Reuters)

Cotton hits five-year high (Agrimoney.com)

Other Fun Stuff

Don’t forget about the role of luck in “creating success” (Oak Tree Capital)

A wife of an American football star left an assault rifle in her rental car…LOL (Fox Sports)

Investing in your “personal capital” (Abnormal Returns)

Tuesday Links: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Selling Anything

Some items you may find interesting this morning…

Futures Links

Time to buy coffee? Many traders have scalded themselves trying to catch a bull trend (DragonFlyCap)

Fed introducing plans to limit banks’ commodity activities (Bloomberg)

China continues to buy U.S. soybeans despite the looming Brazil harvest (Agriculture.com)

The Vampire Squid calls crop futures a bad bet for 2014 (Agrimoney.com)

WTI crude looking at its worst start to a year since 2009 (Bloomberg)

Sugar stares down a four-year low (Investing.com)

Other Fun Stuff

Did you know that dating to 1990 the S&P 500 has dropped one percent an average of 32 times a year? In 2013 it did so 17 times (Avondale Asset Management)

The ultimate cheat sheet for selling anything (James Altucher)

Monday Links: Controlling Your Investment Lizard Brain

If you only have time to catch one more link fest to start your week, make it this one…

Futures Links

Is gold about to move higher? (TheArmoTrader)

Orange juice wakes up…with a 10-cent move up before a bullish crop report akin to the Duke Bros… (LaCrosse Tribune)

The 2013 Q4 demand data confirms cocoa’s bullish end to the year (Bloomberg)

The USDA on Friday: soybeans neutral, corn bullish, wheat bearish (The Poultry Site)

U.S. wheat export premiums hold steady (Business Recorder)

Other Fun Stuff

Controlling your investment lizard brain (Investing Caffeine)

The average hedge fund is an over-priced index fund (Business Insider)

Game of Thrones returns to HBO April 6! (MSN TV)

Wednesday Links: The Biggest Myths in Economics

Happy hump day! Here are some links to devour…

Futures Links

Midwest and Northeast power companies scrambled for natural gas during the cold snap (FT)

Florida orange groves emerge unscathed from record cold temps (TIME)

Chicago Wheat has near-record speculative short positions and whispers of winterkill…can it bounce out of this bear market? (Agrimoney.com)

Ignore Goldman Sach’s public top trade recommendations…you will probably lose (Zero Hedge)

China plans to cut down the total planted cotton acres this year (WSJ)

Other Fun Stuff

The biggest myths in economics…a must read on why ‘deficit doomsayers’  and the like are completely wrong (Pragmatic Capitalism)

What we learned about the market in 2013 (New York Times)

J.P. Morgan’s legal bills hit $31 billion as its stock touches an all-time high…one can only LOL (Reformed Broker)

Tuesday Links: Corn’s 2014 Outlook; Brazil’s Crude Oil Industry Faces Reality

Content you may find interesting on this bone-chilling morning across the USA…

Futures Links

Coffee breaks out (Inside Futures)

World’s largest banks see steady to lower corn prices this year (Agrimoney.com)

Brazil’s crude oil plans hit reality (Washington Post)

ICE cuts its soft commodity trading hours, starting February 3 (WSJ)

Farmer survey suggests smaller North American soybeans, corn crops (Farm Futures)

Other Fun Stuff

CNN Poll finds majority of Americans want to legalize marijuana (CNN)

New Year’s trading resolution: keep it simple, stupid (SMB)

An oath to manage your trading biases (Andrew Grimes)

Thursday Links: The 2013 Futures Markets Winners and Losers

After a holiday break, I’m back with some fresh morning links for your reading pleasure…

Futures Content

The USDA publication calendar for 2014 (USDA)

A look back at 2013’s big chill in grain futures (Farm Futures)

The 2013 futures markets winners and losers (Attain Capital)

Cocoa is expected to star this year…but the chart looks ugly today (Agrimoney)

Demand for physical gold increased 41% at the Perth Mint last year (Bloomberg)

Other Stuff

Professor says Bitcoin is a throwback to an earlier era; what is old is new (Bloomberg)

A recap of the many bad charts that circulated the financial blogosphere in 2013 (A Dash of Insight)

In hindsight, those who shorted gold and bought stocks did best last year (WSJ)

Monday Links: U.S. Oil and Gas Production Shoots to the Moon

A handful of links to start this holiday week…

Futures Links

U.S.
oil and gas production shoots to the moon (Frank Holmes)

American farmers move 1.6 million acres of conservation land into production (NPR)

The California gold rush of 1849 vs. the North Dakota oil boom of 2013 (Business Insider)

British Columbia lumber exports to China sets record in 2013, topping $1.17 billion (Stockhouse)

U.S. farmland prices drop for the first time in four years (Agrimoney.com)

Cotton rides strong export numbers higher (Lubbock Online)

Other Fun Stuff

A high IQ doesn’t automatically correlate to trading success (Martin Kronicle)

Retail traders won’t escape the CME price hikes…bummer (Trader Planet)

Thursday Links: You know what’s cool? $2.3 billion…

Articles for your reading enjoyment…

Futures Links

Sugar falls to 3.5-year low on a strong downtrend…pretty impressive (Business Recorder)

Despite strong prices, soybean acreage to increase by smaller-than-anticipated margin (Agrimoney.com)

Commodity investors rush for the exits to the tune of $88 billion in fund outflows (Financial Times)

Gold hangs by a thread around $1,200 an ounce (Bloomberg)

Other Fun Stuff

The 10 best performing stock markets of 2013…Zambia anyone? (Business Insider)

Playing nice before the Olympics, Putin pardons former oil tycoon (Washington Post)

A story about short selling (Joe Fahmy)

You know what’s cool? $2.3 billion… (Business Insider)

Wednesday Links: Can Spinach Save the Florida Orange Juice Industry?

Today’s links begin with a bit of parody: the definitive chart on bubble physiology. Hat tip to @ACTOFCONGRESS on StockTwits.

 

Futures Links

The end of the Mexican state oil monopoly could add 2.5 million barrels a day of production, but don’t expect immediate results (Bloomberg)

China rejects 30 percent of U.S. corn shipped due to unapproved GMO strain (Reuters)

Rabobank sees cocoa as top performer and soybeans the worst in 2014 (Agrimoney.com)

A look at how Chinese agriculture reforms may affect the prices of cotton (Agrimoney.com)

Scientists look to GMO to save Florida’s orange crop (BusinessWeek)

Other Stuff

A convincing bear argument for a corporate earnings retreat (John Hussman)

What will it take to keep the stock market flying in 2014? (Market Watch)

Boca Biff: the man who has lived the above “Happy Trading…” chart multiple times (Doug Kass)

Taper expectations: September versus today (Money Beat)

Tuesday Links: To Taper or Not to Taper? That is the Question…

Howdy y’all, I’m back after two weeks away with a fresh set of links. I was on holiday in Africa and am planning a quick post soon about what I learned about investing while on safari.

But before I get to that, I’m introducing a slight tweak in my daily links. I’ll now be dividing out the commodities/futures specific links with other stuff I find interesting. As this is primarily a futures trading blog, I’m listing the former first.

Let me know if you have any feedback on this new approach or have any other ideas. I love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading!

Futures Links

It is time for a fun bubble in commodities (Financial Times)

Contrarians are getting that shiny look in their eyes for gold (Market Beat)

Arabica coffee jumps to two-month high… of course it does when I’m away (Business Recorder)

The oil market sits around waiting for the Fed taper decision (Investing.com)

Corn can’t break the pressure as GMO concerns and the South American harvest loom (Business Recorder)

Other Fun Stuff

To taper or not to taper? That is the question… (Tim Duy)

A nice list of investing-themed books from 2013 (Reading the Markets)

I look forward to this every year…investments fads and themes 1996-2013 (Reformed Broker)