agriculture

News out of a Brazilian newspaper today hints that Vale SA could be gearing up for a $25 billion bid for The Mosaic Company (MOS), the #2 potash producer to Potash Corp. (POT). This follows news that mining giant BHP Billiton may also be interested in North American agriculture assets.

Potash (NYSE: POT) and Mosaic (NYSE: MOS) were hit hard Friday [Jul 10: Potash Steamrolled] on news that a Russina provider, Silvinet had signed an agreement with major buyer India for a steep discount, $460 a tonne. To show you the scope of that pricing all the other bidders apparently were in the $625-$635 range.

Ag names have been hit particularly hard in the past few sessions, some breaking key uptrend lines and other critical levels of support, so this State of the Chart will shine the spotlight on MOO, the ag ETF.

Kevin Kerr, commodities analyst and editor of the Global Commodities Alert, discusses how investors can profit from the falling dollar, including specific commodities sectors should keep an eye on.

Just about every good trader I know analyzes and trades using more than 1 time frame. (our theEquilibrium just did a great analysis of Apple on 3 Time Frames).

Mr. Market has begun to show clear signs of split personality disorder in recent weeks. Now that investors have exhaled in relief that a deflationary apocalypse has been avoided, the new reality of reflation and stagnation is sinking in…

Lately, you wouldn't have used the idiom "good as gold" to describe agribusiness. No, you'd have to say that agribusiness is actually *better* than gold. Brad Zigler explains how.

It's going to be a busy week for earnings watchers. Especially those tracking the agricultural and steel sectors. Iowa's Terra Industries Inc. (NYSE: TRA), a producer of fertilizers and agrichemicals, is expected to announce first-quarter earnings of 43 cents a share Tuesday - about half its year-ago profit.

Plant Health Care Inc., an agricultural products manufacturer and distributor, works to manufacture and distribute natural fertilizer type products that enhance crop growth and/or reduce pests above and below ground. The company offers products to both the commercial grower/farmer and commercial home landscaper markets.

If you want to know what I’m doing now, I’ve been buying the yen, as I’ve talked about on Bloomberg before. I’ve been buying commodities, especially agriculture. I’m selling short the United States long-bond, the long-term government bond. Buying some Swiss francs. A little bit of China. A few Chinese shares, a few Taiwan shares. And I’m watching. It’s an interesting time.

As commodities continue to get pounded, there is a sub-sector of the broad commodity group that is worth looking at right now - fertilizer stocks. Yes, they got barbecued along with the rest of the market in the last half of 2008, but the rebound since late last years lows has been impressive. Look at these 3, all benefiting from a fundamentally positive grain cycle right now...

Hey there fellow traders. Tonight I will make it short and sweet since I am still away on holiday in Freezing cold Miami. I could have stayed up North if I wanted this kind of weather.

As a follow up to my posts of last week, I would like to talk about the inflation trade and the temples and where we are today.

In my first post to the Finz.tv blog I mentioned how in order for the market to get a real rally going it would need its so called Temples to participate.

There's been so much bad news about commodities and equities recently that commodity stocks have taken double gut punches. That's certainly been reflected in the charts of some of the hard asset portfolios in the Market Vectors exchange-traded fund lineup. The Market Vectors Steel ETF (NYSE: SLX) tracks the AMEX Steel Index and has dipped 64% year-to-date.