Oil and gold contest update

In another update to the chart for the Guess the Mid-Year Price of Oil and Gold contest, there's been a sort of slingshot motion - one that does not bode well for the price of gold.

Those blasted European banks are selling gold into the market again, prohibiting the entry of the yellow diamond into the densely populated area to the right in the chart below - just think how much more exciting it would be with $690 gold rather than $650 gold.


MT has taken over the lead from Blue Event Horizon, but not by much.

The contest concludes two weeks from today with the winner receiving a free one-year subscription to Iacono Research where, this week, the model portfolio rebounded from last week's setback and now stands up 10 percent on the year, besting all the major U.S. stock indexes.

Commodity prices were a big reason for the stellar performance this week. The table below, part of the weekly update for subscribers, shows a huge amount of green (gains) and very little red (declines) for futures contracts prices.


Look at those year-to-date increases in energy prices!

The pain at the pump is a little bit easier to take when you've got some money in a good commodity fund, something that, unfortunately, is a bit harder to find than you might think. The "commodities less precious metals" category of the model portfolio is up about eight percent on the year with related equities now up a whopping 29 percent. Precious metals and related shares have been the laggards so far in 2007.

It's hard to believe that the CRB is only up 3.9 percent so far this year. What's wrong with that index?