When Liz Truss became Prime Minister one of the first things she did was to reverse the moratorium on fracking in England, and now just a short while later we have seen another U-turn by the Conservatives, with Rishi Sunak reintroducing that ban.

Oil has been showing signs of weakness in recent months after hitting highs of nearly $140/barrel – for Brent – earlier this year, and has suffered over concerns about the economic situation in many countries in the coming months.

It has been a funny last 13 months, but fortunately the financial markets have been the last of my challenges. Obviously I am still not the next Peter Lynch, but I keep on learning (something) even if it was a quarter of a century ago now that I first rocked up in the City. And whilst I could ramble on at length about a few winners this year, one of the more dull stocks has been Carnival (CCL) which I am currently up on 0.25% year-to-date.

The oil price is panning out largely as I expected when I last drafted on this matter back in March. We are now at $84 as I type, compared to the $67 when I last commented. I saw a high probability of $100 by year end, and so far, I see little to change my mind. Oil and Gas equity prices lag the commodity prices, and oil lags gas. I see real opportunity here, but not without some downside risk.

Hello Share Crunchers. Now you may disagree, but my alarmingly long experience of watching the markets tells me that there are golden days ahead . Those who take the opposite view, and they seem numerous, believe that the money pile Whitehall has spent on subsidising working victims of the pandemic, will plunge Blighty into recession. The bears also cite a reluctance to start going out again, red tape in trading after Brexit, mounting unemployment, rising inflation and lower house prices as serious threats to share prices. Let’s take those arguments one by on.

Gold and silver have been extremely weak in recent weeks and investors, certainly retail, seem to be moving away from these metals, but I would question whether that is the right decision to make at this time.

Hello, Share Twiddlers. The house builder formed from a merger between an arm of Galliford Try and Bovis has reported a big Covid hit. But now the pandemic approaches its final months, we can expect better from now on. Especially as the Chancellor has extended the stamp duty holiday…

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past week or so, you can’t but fail to have noticed the news around a massive ‘short squeeze’ on a number of heavily shorted US stocks, with GameStop ($GME) and AMC Entertainment ($AMC) attracting particular attention.

Over the past couple of months it has generally been a good idea to avoid resource stocks unless you’re either buying for the long term or are happy to try and trade high volatility, but one metal that is showing signs of strength is copper.

An announcement from Itaconix (ITX) including “as we continue to experience increasing demand for our detergent polymers, this funding will assist us with staffing levels to support growth in customer volumes” – and the shares currently higher at 1.55p...

At the moment most of the focus on commodities that I have been seeing has been on gold and oil, and what people are forecasting for the coming months and longer term. But I suggest we are missing a great opportunity here.

Hello Share Chasers. Once the Tories surged back into power, you might have expected companies previously threatened by nationalisation to enjoy a big jump in their share prices. Well, there was some improvement, but not exactly a big jump in most cases. So it’s possible that the utilities, for example, could see some more jolly share action before long...

Oil prices have taken an absolute battering this week, but I suspect that what we have seen is somewhat of an over-reaction.

Bushveld Minerals (BMN) has turned out to be my best performing mining tip ever and shows that it is possible for a small AIM outfit to become a successful producer.

Silver has performed very badly in recent months and has hit the lowest levels that we have seen since the start of 2016, but there are plenty of reasons why you should have some exposure to the metal in your portfolio. 

Berkeley Energia (BKY) was once one of the more popular shares on AIM, and there was plenty of interest as its share price rose steadily on speculation.

When it comes to precious metals, all the attention has seemingly been on gold and silver recently, but I think that people are making a mistake if they ignore platinum and the possible upside there.

Copper prices have remained volatile but continue to push higher, and if this continues it will be a very bullish signal for both producers and those looking to bring new projects online.