Global Market Commentary, Analysis and Investments
I was in Bangkok while the floods were raging. I also visited Cambodia. The floods were in the news there as well. Though it did not affect Phnom Penh, where I was, the remote villages were dealing with a lot of water.
That’s the curious thing about water. There always seems to be either too much of it or not enough. What follows is another look at my favorite commodity and the opportunities of investing in it.
[Read more...]I was at the 49 North Resource Conference in Manhattan recently, meeting with mining companies and gathering intelligence. And I heard a guy give a talk with the title, “A Mining Supercycle?”
I thought to myself: “Of course he’ll say we’re in a mining supercycle and how wonderful mining is. I’m at a mining conference, for crying out loud, surrounded by mining companies and geologists. To expect otherwise would be like expecting to find Victoria’s Secret models at an Amish quilting bee.”
[Read more...]You know the old film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? Three men set off into the hinterlands of Mexico to strike gold. They find it, but then greed sets in and they start to mistrust each other. Things go badly from there.
I am really simplifying a great movie, but I couldn’t help but think of the film after reading the papers. The confluence of headlines and stories pointed to the dangers of setting off to find great deposits in relatively unexplored parts of the world. It is already inherently fraught with risk. And then there are many more stories of promising ventures that went nowhere than there are of successes.
[Read more...]The silver market has been on a tear, no doubt about it. The price of this shiny white rock has soared 50% in 2011, alone. There’s good reason for this huge move (Hint: His name is Ben Bernanke). But I want to tell you about a different white rock – one that’s also quite precious.
The rock is called phosphate.
[Read more...]Let me tell you the story of Timothy Bancroft. It’s a good one, and if you haven’t heard it, I think you’ll like it.
Bancroft was a smart and shrewd investor. He dodged the Panic of 1857, which he said was due to “easy money policies” and “overconfident speculation in the railroads and farmlands of the Western states.”
[Read more...]Let’s think back to September 2010. Japan confronted China at sea in a dispute over fishing rights. The Japanese arrested a Chinese fishing boat captain. The Chinese soon imposed an embargo on rare earths exports to Japan.
Suddenly, rare earths – a relatively obscure set of industrial minerals, oxides and metals – became the stuff of high international attention and intrigue. It became common knowledge that China controls about 97% of the world’s rare earths output. Overnight, the dire industrial and political implications of that geological monopoly became apparent.
[Read more...]During the last 24 hours, fear evaporated from the global financial markets as completely as water from a Fukushima reactor. The Nikkei recovered from a 5% plunge to end the day down about 1.4%. Most European markets have rebounded about 2% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is busy attempting a similar feat.
[Read more...]The stakes just got higher in the 3-D chess game China's playing for natural resources. On one dimension, the Middle Kingdom is on the offensive. But on another, it's playing strictly defense…
Beijing is ordering state-owned businesses to explore a bid for PotashCorp (POT), the Canadian fertilizer giant that's already fending off a hostile bid from BHP Billiton, the Anglo-Australian mining giant.
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Crude Oil: The Best Bet for 2012
Crude oil may not only be the best commodity play for 2012, it could prove to be the best commodity play of the next three to four years, soundly beating both gold and silver. I’m not talking about oil producers, refiners or drillers…or any individual stock — but the real thing: crude oil itself.
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