It looks like it will be a wild two weeks of trading between now and the first of the year as thin volume exacerbates moves up and down, the latest examples of the former being new all-time highs set for the price of copper and cotton earlier today.

Word that copper imports to China surged last month and that global cotton supply may fall short of demand are said to have triggered the recent move higher, though a world gushing with paper money created at virtually no cost, some of which is chasing things that must be dug out of the ground or grown in the ground at great expense, is no doubt a factor as well.