I won’t discuss the bailout program in depth in this issue, but I will tell you it makes me sick that we’re collectively bailing out the losing side of a trade for those who made the wrong call. I’ve been through thousands of commodity trades in my career. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone bailed me out of the losers while I got to keep the gains? It’s never happened, and it never will.

Something remarkable occurred in the September soybean futures contract last Friday--the last day of trading for this lightly-traded, widely ignored contract. September beans surged to a one-day record of $2.74 per bushel to end its life at nearly $15 per bushel. In contrast, the active November contract closed an unremarkable 26 cents higher at about $3 per bushel below the final September price.

This has been a year full of volatility and incongruities in the commodity markets. But there’s an upside: I’ve learned to respect both the volatility and incongruities. In fact, all traders can learn quite a bit from what’s transpired over the past few months.

These are the profound words of Mark Twain. Although no two markets are exactly alike, today I’ll examine the phenomenon known as “blood in the streets,” an occurrence that repeats throughout market history. I’m not giving you investment advice here; rather, I’m presenting two specific commodities that are potentially ringing the bell you hear at, or near, the bottom.

First I want to discuss risk. Then I’ll discuss a way to spot the corn price bottom and why corn prices--which collapsed more than $2 per bushel last month--have now fallen into an attractive area.

Oil prices realized their largest weekly drop in history, $145 a barrel down to $129 a barrel. That’s a $16-a-barrel drop. Oil prices are now down $18 a barrel from the July 11 high. Since last Friday, gasoline prices dropped about 40 cents a gallon, and this should show up at the pump in a few weeks.

You should know upfront that I don’t purport to be an expert on the stock market or individual stocks. However, I’ve seen and traded thousands of markets over the years, both stocks and commodities. And over time, I’ve developed a feel for market trends.

With summer just beginning, I’m forecasting plenty of activity for July and August grain and soybean markets.

Recently, the government--pressured by Congress--disclosed a probe into potential oil market manipulation. The politicians want to show they’re doing something about high gas prices before the presidential election.

Over the holiday weekend, I watched There Will Be Blood, the story of an oilman at the turn of the century. Oil was so plentiful in parts of California during that time that it literally seeped out of the ground. Do you think, “Perhaps those days are now behind us?”