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?”

Many commodity prices have dropped sharply in the past few weeks. The main excuse: The dollar has rallied off its lows.

Rice was in the limelight this past week. Costco and Sam’s Club limited the amount of rice customers could buy because of the irrational exuberance of its rice customers. The rice chart below (this is a fairly thin market that’s not too actively traded in the futures) looks like an accelerated rocket ride to the moon. Historically, these kinds of moves always seem to end poorly.

Last week, the Federal Reserve released the minutes from its March 18 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. At that meeting, the Fed cut the fed funds rate by 75 basis points to the current level of 2.25 percent. This raises the following question: If inflation is such a real concern, why would you lower rates?