Crude Will Lead the Rest of the Commodities

Traders of grains, metals, international foods and other commodity futures who have "real-time" price quotes on their trading screens this week observed firsthand just how powerful is the influence of crude oil futures over these other markets. If crude oil prices ticked higher one minute, then so did many other commodity markets. If crude ticked lower the next minute, the other markets did the same in lockstep fashion.

While the crude oil futures market has exerted significant influence over other commodity futures markets for months, that influence became even stronger the past week. Indeed, markets like the grains and softs are virtually ignoring their own supply and demand fundamentals in favor of Big Brother Crude. Such is likely to be the case in the coming weeks and possibly into the end of this year.