Gold weak here early and oil groping for support around the $60bbl level. Volumes yesterday for gold continues to be unimpressive and of course the miners tailed off sensing weakness as they looked at the intra-market numbers for oil, $USD, etc. These two will continue to pressure the whole commodities complex. The CRB chart does not look healthy right now. PPI should come in tame as well. Need those Nigerian rebels to get their act together, Chavez to lose his meds again or the WH to decide that now's the time to get tough with Iran.

We may have enough crude until Gulf weather marches in but there will be other pressures on refined products. Check out the following:

"Do we have enough ethanol? That's what the market is worried about."

Another major focus of the gasoline market's anxiety is the supply of ethanol, a corn-based fuel additive that will be in sharply higher demand this year because many large refiners are voluntarily removing methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, from gasoline, according to Andrew Lipow, a Houston-based energy consultant.

Refiners are rushing to switch to ethanol because of what they see as a growing risk of lawsuits over the use of MTBE, which is banned in California and several other states because of its tendency to pollute groundwater. The additive is still blended into about 11% of U.S. gasoline.

The refiners are making the transition all at once, right before the summer driving season and before ethanol producers are ramped up to accommodate them.

Also many refineries are in shutdown turnaround tuneups.

Looking at my chart of $USD I see that stochastics and the RSI are a bit oversold and are turning neutral (they were decidedly bearish a couple of days ago) indicating that a short-term low may have been posted the middle of last week. $USD is up a little this morning confirming this although it has been tending toward early morning strength then tailing off. If $USD resume its bullish stance that will put additional pressure upon gold.

I've read Bernanke's comments. This is the new "transparent" Fed?

Long: GLD