"Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning."

There is much to think about as world markets seem to be undergoing fundamental changes.

The crash in oil prices has a silver lining for now in that precious metals prices seem to be holding, if not building strenght for a stronger move higher. However, base metals prices are looking pretty bad, even as lower energy prices are driving down production costs.

And, yesterday's panic in the oil patch over the death of King Saud ended very shortly after it began. Prices for a while fell back to where they were before this news hit the wires, but news from Yemen adds pressure to oil prices.

...and the world is deep into a rush that is seeing central banks at war, trying to out bid each other in devaluing their currencies. They hope, of courses, to stimulate investment (i.e., loan activity). That can work for developed countries, but only until the next country moves to do the same.

Some few noted early last week that the price of platinum fell below that of gold - in rising markets for both - for the first time in recent memory. The significance is that gold is more a currency than is platinum, meaning the world now views the transactional value of gold (money) at a higher premium than the industrial (commodity) value of platinum. To my mind this suggests a very signiticant shift is underway in global economics, and in perceptions of what constitutes money (as opposed to fiat currency). ...wrong-headed, unreliable and unpredictable leadership in certain quarters doesn't help either.

Looking ahead some two years, or so, I think there is potential underlying markets for a boom such as we've not seen since the 20's or the 50's, and one of the biggest beneficiaries will be base metals prices and producers. This may depend on choices made by voters, politician and banksters, so we will have to keep tabs on these folks.

Meanwhile, I see red sky, but don't know if know if it's morning or evening.

VP