Is the Glencore IPO Signaling a Crash in Commodity Prices?

Super-secretive Swiss-based commodities trading giant Glencore International AG is going public. The Glencore IPO shares will be priced today (Wednesday) and could begin " conditional trading " in London tomorrow (Thursday). As currently planned, unconditional trading will begin in London on May 24 and in Hong Kong on May 25. In spite of all the pre-IPO hoopla, there's actually probably quite a lot that you don't know about Glencore. If that's the case, don't worry - you're not alone: Columnists and market pundits alike routinely describe the company as "mysterious." To be sure, the Glencore story is a colorful one, and is one of those tales that seems to raise at least as many questions as it answers (For instance, billionaire founder Marc Rich once owned 50% of 20th Century Fox , spent years as a "wanted" man, and was actually pardoned by a U.S. president). So it's no surprise at all that the Glencore IPO deal raises a whole host of new questions - these two key among them: Why is Glencore going public right now? And precisely what does the largest IPO in the history of the United Kingdom means for global commodity prices ? On that last question, at least, I can spare you the suspense: Global commodity prices are going to crash before they rally to new highs. Now I want to show you why... To understand what this deal is telling us about commodity prices, please read on...