The popularity of futures trading has increased with the introduction of the smaller emini futures contracts the past few years since the smaller contract allows for smaller margin requirements, with $5000 or less in trading capital often being the only requirement. Popular contracts like the S & P 500 and the NASDAQ emini futures contracts have been around for sometime and with the introduction of the DOW emini futures contract, futures trading popularity has grown even more.

Trading the emini contract does require knowledge in chart interpretation, support and resistance levels and knowledge of pivot points. However, Japanese candlestick charts are by far one of the most important tools that can be utilized by an emini futures trader. Tracing their history back to the 18th century, candlestick charts have been used by traders and investors to predict pricing in everything from rice commodities to equities. Patterns that form on a candlestick charts can often foretell which way prices will move, giving the savvy emini trader an opportunity to capitalize on the move before it happens.

Powerful reversal formations can tell a trader when a strong up or down move is nearing exhaustion, offering them the opportunity to make profitable trades on the previous strong move as well as profiting on the reversal in the other direction. Japanese candlestick charts also make it easy to determine where support and resistance areas may be located. Emini futures often hesitate in these areas and take a breather after a strong move, either retreating or pushing further in the same direction. Areas of support and resistance are often excellent entry points for emini traders to either execute a new trade or exit a trade.

Emini charting utilizing Japanese candlestick charts in conjunction with other indicators such as Bollinger bands, help to increase the possibilities of determining price direction. Many emini traders use differing time periods in their emini charting, some often using a one minute chart while others may only use a fifteen minute time period for each candlestick. Specific time periods are chosen on the preference of the individual emini trader and how it applies to their preferred trading system.

Emini charting with Japanese candlesticks is probably the most popular since they are easy to read and they reveal with each candlestick four different elements within each candlestick: Opening, high, low and closing. These four elements in each candle combined with two or more previous candles can reveal information that can help an emini trader determine whether to hold an existing position, exit a trade or enter a trade.

Learning to recognize candlestick patterns is not difficult and can be learned with some study at memorizing the formation and what each formation possibly indicates. Incorporating candlesticks into a emini charting and trading system can help enhance the possibility of realizing more winning trades.

Japanese candlestick charting when combined with other indicators can be a powerful tool for emini traders if the time is set aside to learn the different formations and what they indicate. Please visit http://www.candlestickcharting.info to learn more about Japanese candlestick and emini charting.

With financial markets in turmoil, press is full of speculation regarding US dollar and Euro. A lot of coverage is given to unprecedented commodities boom, especially record prices for oil and grains. Precious and industrial metals also draw a lot of attention. Credit and debt markets have been on front pages for a couple of years now. Let’s not forget about stock markets, which, both in US and globally, are experiencing wild swings with seemingly no end in sight.

With so much going on, it’s no wonder that some very large moves in currencies have escaped attention, or at least wide coverage. British Pound, for one, has not been mentioned as often as it deserves. Same goes to Swiss Franc, and by extension, the cross of these two currencies, GBP-CHF.

Despite being one of speculator’s favorite financial vehicle, this pair seems to be living in a shadow of it’s cousin, GBP-JPY, which gets far more coverage from Forex analysts. This fact is likely due to much more vaunted stature of Japanese Yen, while Swiss Franc is so much correlated to Euro, that has been loosing trading volume to other currencies, most notably both Australian and Canadian Dollars. By some accounts, even Swedish Krone has reached comparable trading volume about a year ago.

That is when Franc started to regain some of its past luster as a safe heaven during times of uncertainty and financial turmoil. Swiss central bank started to bust interest rates and CHF staged a very impressive rally, lasting better part of a year. Combined with bearish news coming from Great Brittan, GBP-CHF has seen the most severe sell off amongst CHF crosses.

Between July 2007 and March 2008 this pair fell from 2.5000 to 1.9375. That is a staggering 5600+ pips, a huge move by any standard. In fact, it has been first time in over 10 years, and only the second time ever, that this cross fell under 2.0000, a very important psychological level. As it is often the case in such furious moves, the price rebounded sharply from the March low to about 2.0960 and has since settled into a sideways movement.

This “settled price action” is a relative term and true only in light of past few month. Comparing to other currency pairs, daily moves are still large. Average True Range still shows a reading well over 200, and 300+ pips days are the norm. Just last Thursday daily range was over 420 pips. Certainly this kind of volatility demands respect and creates trading opportunities.

Extreme price fluctuations might make it unsuitable for some traders. Also, trading GBP-CHF on short time frames, might be an expensive proposition. The spread, cost of trading, is still relatively wide. Even though over last few years spreads narrowed down, they are still minimum of 6 pips, with 8-10 pips being the norm. In frequent trading, even the larger profit potential might not offset these costs.

Trading longer time frames might be a better proposition for most traders. The recent low of 1.9375 seems to be a major low, which is likely hold for the the rest of this year. As a matter of fact, patterns on long term charts, weekly and monthly, indicate this to be a multi year low. Long term up trend is expected for the rest of the year with a target of 2.1600-2.1800 over next few months. After that next target would be 2.3000 or perhaps even 2.3500, maybe a year later.

This kind of long term expectations should be reviewed and adjusted every few months. As of this writing, the price is around 2.0470, providing us with a substantial long term trading opportunity. Due to large volatility of this pair, one shouldn’t use high leverage as there are almost sure to be severe pullbacks over time. While not suitable for everybody, GBP-CHF is certainly an exciting cross, worth of a closer look.

Mike P. Kulej is a Chief Forex Strategist for Spectrum Forex LLC. He specializes in mechanical trading systems as explained on http://www.spectrumforex.com Spectrum Forex LLC offers numerous services to individual traders. With questions and comments e-mail him at kulej@spectrumforex.com

This is the man that some know by the title of the home biz guy and Stone Evans can show you how you can turn less than 10 dollars into more than 20 thousand dollars in a short period of time. If you are considering an internet business, you will want to learn how to do things the Stone Evans’ way.

Mr. Stone Evans is a self made millionaire and a wizard when it comes to figuring out online marketing strategies. His home base is in Texas and he is one of the best instructors in the field of internet marketing campaigns. One of the ways that you can rake advantage of his expertise is by using one of his Plug in profit sites. These sites are available to you now and you can have your business online and functioning in one day.

An online site that is marketed as a plug in already has everything operational, it only needs the domain site and hosting that you can provide. It has affiliate links and programs built in and is fully prepared to start you on your way to success. You can also take advantage of more of Stone Evans’ philosophy and wisdom by checking out some of his books, like 30 days to success and dotcomology. These books and web sited products have been available for nearly 6 years and there are many of people who have become wealthy in their own right by taking advantage of these opportunities.

You can download his 30 days to success book now and learn how to begin earning your money quickly. If you want to become a part of the wealth that is available online, this book by Stone Evans is a blueprint that can show you how to become successful by doing marketing in your home with the internet. If you do not have the time to do a business full time, think again. With the tips and strategies that you can learn from Stone Evans, you will be able to get your business online in less than a day with a little effort and then you let it run itself.

This was a man who became famous for giving away websites free just to get others who wanted business to link up with his own affiliate services. This is the way that the Plugin Profit Sites got their first start; you may have heard them referred to as PIPS. Today Stone will still provide you with a new site in a day or even less. The choice of names is up to you and you will get a distinctive slogan or emblem to help with the promoting of your own site. You will then be well on your way to generating money?

Don’t be fooled by the plug and play systems you need a base of training and development of skills to truly create dynamic success online. Learn and apply, rinse and repeat and you will be well on your way to success.

Joshua Valentine is a top internet marketer who works with industry leaders from around the world. He has a passion for helping others achieve their goals, dreams and aspirations. To learn more about Joshua Valentine and his team of Marketing Mentors Click Here

Staying healthy is a constant challenge in a world full of pressures and problems. Most of us are concerned about being fit and enjoying life to the full. So we need to maximise every area of our life to be healthy and enjoy a good wellbeing. We can sleep for up to a third of our lives so we should not ignore the impact of improving the amount of fitful sleep we obtain. When we select poor quality bedding it can have a dramatic negative affect on our sleep pattern. It can leave us feeling irritable, weak, and with a reduced ability to perform tasks. Good quality wool bedding initially appears to be expensive when compared to synthetic bedding, but as with many things you get what you pay for. Here are some reasons why wool bedding may be the wiser choice. Natural wool is a regulator of temperature. In practice this means that when we lay on the wool, it ‘breathes’, adapting to our body temperature either to keep us warm or cool us down. It will adapt to suit us personally in all seasons, promoting a better, deeper sleep all year round. Natural wool is allergy-resistant. Dust mites often inhabit our bedding, but with a wool duvet this is far less often the case, as wool will not support the fertile living and breeding conditions the mites need to stay alive. So long as you keep the duvet clean, you should be safe from catching allergies that dust mites can transfer to humans. Natural wool is supportive.

Wool pillows, for example, will support your head as you sleep, as they are light and soft, but do not flatten excessively, in fact they will retain their shape even after many hours under your weight. So you will no longer need to ‘plump up’ your pillows during the night. Natural wool is an absorber. When you sweat, you release moisture, but wool can absorb up to a third of its own weight without feeling wet to the touch. Wool allows water molecules to move freely and so perspiration is not such a problem, you thereby should have less chance of waking up feeling hot and sticky. Natural wool is animal and eco-friendly. Being 100% sustainable and renewable, wool is in harmony with the environment. Its production does not involve any unnecessary cruelty to animals, which is always a comfort to animal lovers. Sleeping under a wool duvet, on a wool pillow, and on a wool underblanket you will appreciate why wool is being used more and more in modern times. Sleeping with wool may enhance your ability to sleep fitfully to the extent that you may gain up to 800 extra hours of rest each year! You can look forward to feeling revitalized and refreshed each morning and you will notice the difference wool can make to your life.

Guy Bodger is a Director of White Cloud Trading Co Ltd based in Gloucestershire, UK. He is passionate about the natural qualities of wool and concentrates much of his efforts on ’sharing the light’ about the benefits of wool products.

These are very troubled times in the global financial markets, but does this mean that it is a bad time to trade the foreign exchange market?

About a year ago when the U S dollar was in free fall against a basket of currencies, Warren Buffett announced that he had great faith in the long term strength of his national currency and he made a very large purchase of the U S dollar.

At this moment in time, when markets are diving and previously strong currencies are dropping like a brick, the U S dollar has shrugged off the overall state of the economy and is gaining strength - Just as Warren Buffett predicted.

How did he know?

In times of turmoil and financial depression there are always those few who do rather well. So what is their secret?

In the book - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - one of the central characters is a researcher for that guide, and he states that one of the things that has made the guide so popular is that emblazoned on the front cover are the reassuring words:- DON’T PANIC

I would suggest that these words would apply equally to all forex traders at present.

The reason that there are a few who succeed when chaos is all around is that amongst other things, they understand the need to not panic. They know that there will still be opportunities, but unlike during the “good times” those opportunities need to be watched and waited for. They also understand that this will not be a good time to make rash decisions. High probability trades will still be available, but there may be fewer of them.

When trading the forex, there are a galaxy of trading methods and instruments to call upon. What worked well for you in the past may continue to work - if you have the control to watch and wait for the right moment, but this will not be a good time for those traders that like to “jump right in”

Warren Buffett states that when he sees everyone getting out of something, that is the very time that he likes to get in. This is a classic case of DON’T PANIC.

I should add here that although getting in as everyone else is getting out has obviously worked extremely well for Warren Buffett, do bear in mind that he does have “very deep pockets” which allows him to “buy and hold”.

Even in these turbulent times the age old adage “the trend is your friend” still holds true - albeit that the trends may be of somewhat shorter duration than we may have become used to. Perhaps a better adage would be “the short term trend is your friend.

As I have stated, although we are in the early stages of very turbulent trading times which I suspect will get worse before they get better, this is a good time to learn not to panic.

Take time to review your trading method or system and ensure that it is a suitable method for turbulent market conditions.

If necessary add some additional filters to smooth out some of the turbulent action.

Be prepared to spend time adjusting your trading system to the current market conditions and to spend time demo trading to test any adjustments that you may make to your trading system. It would be very unwise to test any alterations that you have made to your trading system in a live account.

For some, this volatile period will be a very profitable time. Make sure that you are one of them.

Martin Bottomley is a full time professional forex trader, acknowledged author, forex tutor and co-developer of forex trading software including The Amazing Stealth Forex Trading system. You will find more information at: http://www.stealthforex.com

Automated Forex trading systems have become quite popular in the past couple of years as more and more ordinary people are flocking to the forex market in the hopes of striking it rich or at least creating a good sized profit stream to supplement their regular income.

Truth be told, the Forex market is as much a trap as it is an opportunity as the statistics display a harsh reality in which over 90% of all traders lose money while less then 10% profit. As the Forex market is intricate and complex, there is indeed room for automatic forex trading systems. They can make your life a lot easier and help you make more money in the process.

However, there is a danger in using an automatic forex trading program, and that danger is ignorance. It’s very easy to fall prey to the comfort of using a software which does half or all of the work for you. Some systems actually make the entire trade on your behalf. As we are all very busy, we tend to put our faith in systems to take our place.

Despite the fact that some Forex trading software are excellent, I advise you to always strive to educate yourself on how the forex market actually works. Even if you have an automatic system which works for you, you need to be able to do things yourself, recognize opportunities, evaluate risks and earning potential, and know how to manage your investments.

The difference between ignorance and knowledge in the Foreign Exchange market can be the difference between making hundreds of dollars a month (or losing even) and making tens of thousands. So, regardless of whether you have a software to work for you, continue to learn more and more on how the market works. This knowledge can be worth gold.

To read more about Forex programs, click here: Forex Trading Systems. John Drummond works from home. He writes often on business, trading, and finances. To read John Drummond’s review of how to acquire a Forex Education, click here: Online Forex Education Review.

The recent year has been a rough year for the financial markets and the global economy. Stock exchanges went down, the dollar took a dive, oil prices went up, and other prices also went up. These economic problems caused massive layoffs and huge unemployment. This situation has led to many people losing their job and stopping to bring money home. There can be many solutions, but one solution is particularly good: trading the forex market.

Forex is a short way to write foreign currency exchange, and it is a huge market. It has a volume of over three trillion dollars per day. This enormous liquidity allows you to trade at any time without the fear of getting stuck in an unwanted position. In the stock market, you can have a situation in which you have stock you cannot sell. In the currency market, there is never such situation. You can always exit a position, whether it is to prevent a loss or take a profit.

Also, the forex market never suffers from any period of “bearish” activity, or a continuous down trend. In the forex market, currencies are traded in pairs. When one currency is going up, another one is going down. This market behavior allows you to make a profit regardless of the current economic environment or currency movement.

Internationality is another great benefit of the currency market. It does not matter where you live, you can trade 24 hours a day, six days a week. Whether you live in America, Europe, or Asia, you can make money. This global market allows you to make money from other people, those who live in a better economic situation than you live in.

Experience is not something you need to start trading the forex market, and that is a great advantage, especially if you are a beginner. There are many automated trading systems which can trade for you. They are programmed by professionals, so their risk is minimal, while their profit potential is nearly unlimited.

You can get yourself a good trading system very easily. To get a good one, visit the Forex Funnel review page on Great-Info-Products and see for yourself how this system works.

About the author:

Nadav Snir is a stock market trader and forex trader. You can find more information about forex trading and forex brokers at his site at http://Great-Info-Products.com/Forex/index.html

There is a huge market for automated Forex Trading Systems these days and there are new systems popping up all over the place almost every week. Unfortunately most of those so called automated trading systems out there are no more than just another scam; they are released by those sly internet marketing gurus, who are desperately trying to sell the hell out of you and in the process attempting to steal your hard earned money. Finding a legitimate Forex expert advisor is a fairly daunting task and if you are a beginner it is fairly easy to get confused and scammed out of your money. Therefore if you are in need of a good automated trading system to simplify your trading decisions, and do not wish to fall prey to the endless list of scammers out there, then continue reading this article as I will show you the secret tips and tricks on how to choose the best Forex expert advisor.

The Golden Rule To Follow when looking for a profitable automated Forex Trading System is to avoid any vendor that doesn’t provide live forward test statements. Any vendor that claims his system is making big gains and only provides you with backtest results (which are usually simulated and forged) is 99% a scam, and should be evaded at all costs. It just doesn’t make sense, if you believe your system is making you such immense profits, then why not trade it live and cash in on the profits for yourself? Hence any legitimate Forex expert advisor will have live forward test statements published on their website and they are updated regularly, which indicate exactly how well the EA is performing in actual market conditions. If you avoid simulated systems and look for ones that actually provide real results then you are getting rid of around 90% of those sold online and then you can concentrate on finding the few good ones. ** Never Buy any Forex expert advisor that Doesn’t provide Forward Test Statements**

Next make sure you understand the logic and principles behind the system so you know exactly how it works and what it is doing. You cannot follow an automated Forex trading system with discipline unless you understand and have confidence in the logic so make sure you know it. This may take you a while to understand if you don’t have any prior knowledge of technical analysis or how the Forex market functions, therefore I suggest you do yourself a favor and get busy, start learning basic technical and fundamental analysis if you wish to succeed with your automated trading system. You will get told by many vendors, to trade the system in a demo account for a month or so to gain confidence but this is total waste of time, you can only judge any system over a year or more. So unless you fancy waiting that long, just take the simple route and learn the logic behind the system.

Lastly I believe it is absolutely critical that the seller of the automated Forex Trading system is the creator of the product and is able to answer any queries and problems related to the system on a regular basis, this way you know you’re in good hands. The Forex market is constantly changing and in order for expert advisors to remain profitable they must be able to evolve and adapt to different market conditions. This is why the best expert advisor vendors will offer you free lifetime updates on their products and also offer regular ongoing after sales support in order to make sure that you succeed with their trading systems. Ideally the site should contain some sort of a Forum, Live chat support or email support.

Therefore when looking for a profitable automated Forex trading system you should adhere to the guidelines above in order to make sure you find a legitimate source which you can build a trustful relationship with in the future. I am fairly confident that Now you will be able to give any trading system a thorough evaluation and in turn should be able to choose the best Forex expert advisor out there for your Forex trading needs.

It is no secret that in order to succeed in the world of Forex Trading You must follow a good trading system and adhere to strict money management techniques. An Expert Advisor can seriously simplify the process and get you well on your way. If you wish to automate your Forex Trading Decisions by using a Forex Expert Advisor then check out this Collection of The Best Expert Advisors available for Forex Trading.

As an online stock trader, part of your responsibilities is understanding when to trade more actively and when to use more leverage. To have a long and rewarding carer as an equity trader you need to understand how to run your business on a daily basis. When my family owned a pizza parlor in NY it would have been great to be making pie after pie all day however that wasn’t reality. You only made a pizza when there was a request, you made many of them when the store was busy.

When you are sitting at your screen you need to understand when it is busy. To define this even deeper, you want to know when institutions are involved. Since we are seeking to jump on their backs we want to know when they are involved. The tool we use to determine this larger involvement is the NYSE TICK. There is also one for NASDAQ, but we feel the info from the NYSE TICK is sufficient.

The TICK represents the number of upticking stocks versus downticking stocks at any one particular moment in time. Reading the absolute number all day is not necessary but there are specific readings to pay attention to in order to make an informed decision regarding your activity level, trade expectation and leverage.

If the TICK has readings of +500 or -500 but no more than that, there is very little institutional order flow or activity. When I see this, I slow down my activity level, lighten up on my leverage and DECREASE my expectation for each trade (meaning I expect to make less per trade).

When I get consistent pushes of +1,000 or higher or -1,000 or lower I know the big boys are around and I will increase my leverage, activity level and my leverage. I am expecting FOLLOW THROUGH now.

This simple but effective tool will be a great gauge for your trading. Monitor it for a few days, I am sure you will be very happy to add this to your arsenal.

Keystone Trading Group provides intra day leverage, software and competitive commissions to direct access traders. The founders and instructors of Keystone Trading Group have managed a profitable short term trading desk for the last seven years. Our specialty is short term stock trades. http://keystonetradinggroup.com/

Investment newsletters are now featuring headlines like “How You Can Profit from the Global Food Crisis.” The recommended investments include agribusiness stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that speculate in agricultural commodities. These investments will no doubt do very well in the global food crisis; but before you put your money down, you may want to explore whether you will be helping to alleviate the problem or actually contributing to it. Do you really want to “invest” in starvation? In an April 23 article in the German news source Spiegel Online called “Deadly Greed: The Role of Speculators in the Global Food Crisis,” Balzli and Horning note, “Many investors . . . are simply oblivious to the fact that by investing in the global casino, they could be gambling away the daily food supply of the world’s poorest people.”

Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has called the exploding food crisis “a silent mass murder.” In an interview in the French daily Liberation on April 14, he said, “We are heading for a very long period of rioting, conflicts [and] waves of uncontrollable regional instability marked by the despair of the most vulnerable populations.” He blamed globalization and multinationals for “monopolizing the riches of the earth,” and said that a mass uprising of starving people against their persecutors is “just as possible as the French Revolution was.”

In some places, in fact, this is already happening. In Haiti, where the cost of rice has nearly doubled since December, the prime minister was fired this month by opposition senators after more than a week of riots over the cost of staple foods. Violent protests over food prices have been set off in Bangladesh, where rice has also doubled; in the Ivory Coast, where food prices have soared by 30 to 60 percent from one week to the next; and in Egypt, Uzbekistan, Yemen, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Italy. In an April 21 Wall Street Journal article titled “Load Up the Pantry,” Brett Arends observed that the food riots now seen in the developing world could soon be affecting Americans as well. Rocketing food prices are not a passing phase but are actually accelerating. He recommends hoarding food - not because he is actually expecting a shortage, but as an investment, because “food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund.” Arends goes on:

“The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food. A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That’s soaking up some of the corn supply.”

That’s the rationale published in the Journal of Wall Street, the financial community that brought us the housing bubble, the derivatives bubble, and now the commodities bubble, producing the subprime crisis, the credit crisis, and the oil crisis. The main reason for the food crisis, says this author, is that the Chinese and Indian middle classes are eating better. Really? Rice has been the staple food of half the world for centuries, and it is hardly rich man’s fare. Moreover, according to an April 2008 analysis from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, food consumption of grains has gone up by only one percent since 2006.

That hardly explains the fact that the price of rice has spiked by 75 percent in just two months. The price of Thai 100 per cent B grade white rice, considered the world’s benchmark, has tripled since early 2007; and it jumped 10 percent in just one week. The fact that corn is being diverted to fuel, while no doubt a contributing factor, is also insufficient to explain these sudden jumps in price. World population growth rates have dropped dramatically since the 1980s, and according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, grain availability has continued to outpace population. Biofuels have drained off some of this grain, but biofuels did not suddenly happen, and neither did the rise of the Asian middle class. If those were the chief factors, the rise in food prices would have been gradual and predictable to match.

Another explanation for the sudden jump in grain prices, not mentioned by this Wall Street Journal writer, is suggested by William Pfaff in the April 16 International Herald Tribune:

“More fundamental is the effect of speculation in food as a commodity - like oil and precious metals. It has become a haven for financial investors fleeing from paper assets tainted by subprime mortgages and other toxic credit products. The influx of buyers drives prices and makes food unaffordable for the world’s poor. ‘Fund money flowing into agriculture has boosted prices,’ Standard Chartered Bank food commodities analyst Abah Ofon told the media. ‘It’s fashionable. This is the year of agricultural commodities.’”

The “hot money” that has fled the collapsed real estate bubble is now moving into the commodities bubble, and that includes food. “Hot money” is an influx of speculative capital in search of high rates of return, quickly moving from one market to another. It moves, however, not because the products are better (the traditional justification for price-setting according to “free market forces”) but because the speculative “spread” is better. Money is invested not in making real goods and services but simply in making more money. Food prices are being driven by speculators, and today that includes ordinary investors like you and me, who can now gamble in agricultural futures through ETFs that have opened up a lucrative market formerly available only to big investment players.

Conventional economic theory says that prices are driven up when “demand” exceeds “supply.” But in this case “demand” does not mean the number of hands reaching out for food. It means the amount of money competing for existing supplies. The global food crisis has resulted from an increase, not in the number of mouths to be fed, but simply in the price. It is the money supply that has gone up, and it is investment money in search of quick profits that is largely driving food prices up. Much of this seems to be happening in the futures market, where fund managers seek to maximize their profits by using futures contracts. Balzli and Horning explain:

“The futures market is a traditional tool for farmers to sell their harvests ahead of time. In a futures contract, quantities, prices and delivery dates are fixed, sometimes even before crops have been planted. Futures contracts allow farmers and grain wholesalers a measure of protection against adverse weather conditions and excessive price fluctuations. . . . But now speculators are taking advantage of this mechanism. They can buy futures contracts for wheat, for example, at a low price, betting that the price will go up. If the price of the grain rises by the agreed delivery date, they profit. Some experts now believe these investors have taken over the market, buying futures at unprecedented levels and driving up short-term prices. Since last August, this mechanism has led to a doubling in the price of rice.”

The authors quote grain wholesaler Greg Warner, who says what is happening now in the grain futures market is unprecedented. “What we normally have is a predictable group of sellers and buyers — mainly farmers and silo operators.” But the landscape has changed since the influx of large index funds into the futures market. “Prices keep climbing up and up.” Warner calculates that financial investors now hold the rights to two complete annual harvests of a type of grain traded in Chicago called “soft red winter wheat.” He calls these developments “stunning” and points to them as “evidence that capitalism is literally consuming itself.”

What about investing in agribusinesses such as Monsanto, which have promoted the “Green Revolution” through the bioengineering of foods and the production of GMO (genetically modified) seeds, synthetic fertilizers, and herbicide and pesticide sprays? Won’t these corporations, at least, help to alleviate the global food crisis? To the contrary, critics say these businesses too are just driving food prices up. Monsanto’s patented GMO seeds have been genetically engineered so that they cannot reproduce but must be purchased every year from the company. Small farmers who have fallen for the hype of greater productivity and subjected their land to these seeds and chemicals have found that not only have their yields been reduced but that the land will no longer bear anything except GMO seeds. Farmers who can no longer afford the seeds are priced out of the market, handing monopoly control over to the agribusiness giants that can then raise prices to whatever the market will bear; and in the case of food, it will bear a lot, right up to the point of slavery. As Henry Kissinger once famously said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

What can you invest in, then, that actually would help relieve the global food crisis? One possibility is local organic farming. “Community-supported agriculture” (CSA) is a model of food production, sales, and distribution aimed at increasing the quality of food and the care given to land, plants and animals, while reducing losses and risks for producers. A variety of CSA systems are now in use worldwide, allowing small-scale commercial farmers and gardeners to have a successful, small-scale closed market while providing their customer-members with a regular delivery or pick-up of healthy local produce. The USDA provides a list of CSA addresses and websites.

That still leaves the problem of speculation in food futures. How can parasitic profits to non-producing middlemen be eliminated while still protecting farmers? The futures market was first created for farmers, who needed to be able to lock in a price today that would cover their costs and return a reasonable profit later. One interesting proposal is to return to the policy of “farm parity pricing” enacted during the 1930s. It ensured that the prices received by farmers covered the prices they paid for input plus a reasonable profit. If the farmers could not get the parity price, the government would buy their output, put it into storage, and sell it later. The government actually made a small profit on these transactions; food prices were kept stable; and the family farm system was preserved as the safeguard of the national food supply. With the push for “globalization” in later decades, farm parity was replaced with farm “subsidies” that favored foods for export over local markets. They also favored large corporate farms engaged in chemical farming over sustainable farming, forcing thousands of family farmers out of business. Farm parity pricing could help, but a complete solution to the problem of global inflation would require an overhaul of the private central banking system that has created one bubble after another for the last century. (See E. Brown, “Market Meltdown: The End of a 300 Year Ponzi Scheme,” webofdebt.com/articles, September 3, 2007.)

If you want to invest in the commodities boom without driving up the global prices of food or fuel, buy gold.

Ellen Brown, J.D., developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In “Web of Debt,” her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.” She shows how this private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. Her websites are http://www.webofdebt.com and http://www.ellenbrown.com Her eleven books include the bestselling “Nature’s Pharmacy,” co-authored with Dr. Lynne Walker, which has sold 285,000 copies.