Commodities have been much more volatile of late, especially last week with with copper closing last Friday at a six-month low on expectations of weak Chinese economic growth. It has since had a bounce, but it was an ever so small bounce. Last week, China surprised the markets (as it often likes to do) with [...]

  Hey, “It’s tough out there !” Yes, indeed.  Let’s see where we are: What will happen with interest rates?  Is there a bond bubble ? What is the future impact from Europe ? Will emerging markets continue to grow and support commodity markets? Will there be a QEIII ? What will be the impact [...]

It is often thought that copper is the one commodity that truly reacts to and reflects investor sentiment when it comes to the health of the global economy. If fact, many traders and investors believe that copper prices are the driving force behind global economic growth. Unlike gold, which is really just a nice shiny [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article entitled “Equilibrium – A Crazy Idea ?”  The idea being of course that amidst all the daily blazing news about European debt, potential contagion, and general mayhem, there are actually underlying economies that continue to produce and consume “things” – and that slow to no growth [...]

Yet more excitement about the Eurozone has investors scurrying in the latest risk off trading session. Initial enthusiasm over the EU deal agreed to late last week on tighter EU control over national budgets faded, as the realization set in that there remain serious issues unresolved.  Such as: can Italy really be protected what is [...]

Are we all getting tired of the Euro debt crisis.  Seems like as the headlines come in, one story is about something fundamental with the next about the Euro debt crisis. Something came to mine – an old 70s tune entitled “Right Place, Wrong Time” by Dr. John. Yes indeed.  So what does this song [...]

Last week I was reading an interesting article in the Financial Times on population growth and how the world was bracing for the arrival of its 7 billionth citizen this week. As you know, this isn’t a new story and people having been commenting on this for at least a couple of centuries. But as [...]

Maybe, just maybe some semblance of reality might be filtering into the markets.  The markets have had a good run over the past three weeks and were up again yesterday – and maybe it is for the right reasons, not just on speculation regarding Greece and whether there will be a complete rescue or a [...]

Whenever you turn on the news, look at commodities, everything is about gold. Gold… gold… gold. I submit to you that gold doesn’t really matter when it comes to the global economy. The fact that gold prices have come down over the last 3 weeks from it $1,927 high to $1,621 today (gold took another [...]

Yep Greece is back in the news and French banks are leading the slide. These events yet again illustrate the problems that can arise with interconnected financial markets when combined with reckless lending practices and increasingly political central bankers that cater to those that appoint them. Look – we have had 40 years of economies [...]