I may be the first to proclaim the current turnaround of commodities but... August's sector action brings up a question.
While the VistaCTA commodity basket is up 4.12% month to date (as of Friday's 8/16/2013 close) this is NOT a broad based rally. Energy, which was July's top performer, is up only 1.34%, grains are unchanged and agriculture, on average, is up 1.92%. The gains are concentrated in metals which are up 9.77% in August. And silver, the weaker sister, dominates, up 18.79%. Silver, per trader lore, is the fickle metal and wanes and waxes with the moon and is usually NOT the marker for a long-term broad based commodity rally.