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.
[Read more...]Water – Still Blue Gold
November 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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...]The Rising Tide of Resource Nationalism
May 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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 “Other” White Rock
April 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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...]The Story of Timothy Bancroft
April 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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...]Why Markets are Rebounding Despite Continued Crisis
March 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
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.
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Successful Investing Strategies in a Government-Centric Market
You’ve heard of “risk on”; you’ve heard of “risk off”… But have you heard of “everything off”?
That’s the trade that seems to be underway right now. Investors are dumping everything with a ticker symbol: US stocks, foreign stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds, precious metals, crude oil and almost every other commodity.
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