Category: View from Crystal Bay

Commodity markets are in the middle of a perfect storm. The pandemic tightened supply as operations were shut down and businesses drew down inventories in anticipation of a slowdown that never materialized. Wild monetary response coupled with fast demand recovery, creating shortages across the board. Prices shot up for almost all commodities. During the last Read More

A few countries in the world, mostly in continental Europe and Latin America, are collecting wealth taxes from their residents. A wealth tax is an annual charge, ranging from 0.5% to 3%, on net worth (assets minus liabilities). Wealth taxes are controversial, often leading to an exodus of the most talented and wealthiest residents (such Read More

Financial markets operate on the edge of chaos. If prices moved in easily predictable patterns, traders would make money by jumping in front of them. But that would disrupt the pattern, making it useless for prediction. On the other hand, if financial markets were pure noise, there would be no point in investing. Asset prices Read More

China’s economy has a major impact on commodity markets and China’s leaders are not afraid to throw their weight around. Right now, we’re witnessing an attempt by China to slow down the rise in commodity prices. Chinese factory price index, released on April 8th, grew by 4.4% year-on-year, well ahead of economists’ estimates of a Read More

As the new case counts decline and vaccination numbers march forward in the United States, we can see the end of the coronavirus pandemic on the horizon, at least domestically. A few other countries are also doing well, led by Israel, Seychelles, United Arab Emirates, Bhutan, Chile, the United Kingdom, Serbia, and Hungary. (As an Read More