The Great Commodity Bear, Is It Finally Over?

There is something happening in the commodities complex that has been going on for awhile now that needs to be addressed tonight. A subtle change actually started earlier this year and has been gaining momentum especially in the energy sector. I know for a lot of you, with the weak US dollar, you are thinking, “how could commodities be declining,” which goes against everything you have learned about how the markets are supposed to work. If the markets always behaved like everyone thinks they should then there would be no markets, because everyone can’t be right. That’s the nature of the beast we’re trying to tame.

Tonight I would like to show you some bearish rising wedges which have formed all over the place in the commodities complex. Many of the rising wedges took over a year to build out so that sets up a healthy decline. The bigger the pattern the bigger the move.

This first chart tonight is the ratio combo chart using the TIP:TLT to gauge if we are experiencing inflation or deflation. Earlier this year the ratio in black formed a small topping pattern just below the black dashed trendline, then had a quick backtest, and is now starting to gain momentum to the downside. When the ratio in black is falling it shows deflation. The CRB index along with the GDX are still in a downtrend with the CRB index being weaker than the GDX, as shown by the 30 week ema.

Next, let’s look at some different commodity indexes to see what they may be telling us. This first commodities index we’ll look at is the old CRB index. This bearish rising wedge began to develop way back in early 2016 with the 4th reversal point taking place a year later at the top of the rising wedge. As you can see the 4th reversal point was a H&S top reversal pattern. The breakout came in March with no backtest. There was a small blue bearish rising wedge which formed in the middle of 2015 which was part of that huge impulse leg down.

This next chart for the CRB index I’ve used for many years which shows a lot of nice Chartology on it. The CRB index is a good producer of chart patterns and measured moves as shown by the different colored arrows. Note how every important high is lower that the previous high going back to the top in 2008. Our bearish rising wedge doesn’t look so big on this long term chart.