With the recent bout of devastating weather events including drought, frost, fires, flooding and heat, we are reminded of the potential for more frequent and extreme climate variability in the years ahead. Market dislocations due to weather have the potential to occur more frequently and more severely, impacting food prices around the globe. While much attention Read More
From the Trading Desk: Another Stock Rebound?
The CPI figure of 0.3% was lower than the estimate of 0.4% and significantly less than the 0.5% reading posted in July. The lower-than-expected figure offers some support to the Fed’s and Biden administration’s view that current high inflation levels will be temporary, as it shows prices surged less than expected in August. U.S. Stocks Read More
View from Crystal Bay: The Ballad of Kumtor Gold
Central Asia is the region between the Caspian Sea and China, bounded in the north by Russian Siberia and in the south by Iran and Afghanistan. In the old days, it was known under the names of Transoxiana or Western Turkestan. It was inhabited both by nomadic herders who roamed the steppes and by urban Read More
View from Crystal Bay: Taking on Inflation, Then and Now
The scepter of inflation is haunting the land. It remains to be seen whether it’s only Casper the Ghost, good for scaring small children, or whether we’re dealing with a full blown Poltergeist. We will have our answer soon enough. But it’s not too early to ask ourselves what should we do if relevant authorities Read More
Well, this is a bull market, you know!
Here in the summer months, markets have reacted negatively to the global increase in cases of the Delta variant and the challenges in getting larger swaths of the US population vaccinated against the virus. The market sold off swiftly last week only to recover the losses over the last few days. Newspaper headlines couldn’t resist Read More