Skip to main content

Update on commodity index reweightings

A bit of an update to yesterday's news on reweightings in the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI).

While we were searching to find the large changes in energy weigtings reported by the NY Post (see update in yesterday's GSCI post), we came across some notable shifts in the makeup of the Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index.

The print edition of today's Financial Times reported notable changes in the Dow Jones-AIG's weightings for base metals and natural gas.

Base metal prices extended their slide, with nickel and zinc prices falling after an announcement by Dow Jones that it is adjusting the weightings of the 19 futures contracts in its Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index. It said nickel would be cut to 2.7 per cent from 5.7 per cent and zinc would be cut to 2.8 per cent from 4.9 per cent.

Dow Jones said it would boost the weighting of US natural gas to 13 per cent from 7.3 per cent. The company rebalances its benchmark commodity index at the start of each year. Historically it reduces the weighting of the best performing commodities from the previous year, and increases the weighting of underperforming commodities.

Hope we're up to date on these issues. Sorry for the delay in posting, we had some difficulties in accessing & editing the blog earlier today.

And for more on the recent commodities action and base metals correction, please see Rob Kirby's FSO Monday market wrap up, as well as George Kleinman's latest article, "Collapse or Correction?". Good reading!

Popular posts from this blog

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety .  My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes .    Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes     2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4.

Slate profiles Victor Niederhoffer

Slate's recent profile of writer/speculator, Vic Niederhoffer has been getting some attention from traders and finance types in recent days. I thought we'd take a look at it here too, to offer up some possible educational value from Vic's experiences with trading and loss. Here's an excerpt from Slate's profile of Victor Niederhoffer : " I've enjoyed getting your e-mails. It sounds like you've thought a lot about being wrong. Well, the reason you contacted me, to call a spade a spade, is that I'm sort of infamous for having made a big, notorious, terrible error not once but twice in my market career. Let's talk about those errors. The first was your investment in the Thai baht, which pretty much wiped you out when the Thai stock market crashed in 1997. I made so many errors there it's pathetic. I made one of my favorite errors: "The mouse with one hole is quickly cornered." That is key. There are certain decisions you make in li

William O'Neil Interview: How to Buy Winning Stocks

Investor's B usiness Daily founder and veteran stock trader, William O'Neil share d his trading methods and insights on buying winning stocks in an in-depth IBD radio interview. Here are some highlights from William O'Neil's interview with IBD: William O'Neil's interest in the stock market began when he started working as a young adult.  "I say many times that I didn't get that much out of college. I didn't have much interest in the stock market until I graduated from college. When I got married, I had to look out into the future and get more serious. The investment world had some appeal and that's when I started studying it. I became a stock broker after I got out of the Air Force."    He moved to Los Angeles and started work in a stock broker's office with twenty other guys. When their phone leads from ads didn't pan out, O'Neil would take the leads and drive down to visit the prospective customers in person.