Barron's: Coal Rally Won’t Last

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The coal market has been burning brighter lately. But don’t expect the glow to last too long.

That’s because the reasons for the rally aren’t sustainable. The surge in demand for coal is likely to be ephemeral, and production isn’t falling as much as would have been expected. The long-term prospects for coal aren’t promising in the U.S. and Europe, thanks to environmental concerns. But coal-generated power still accounts for two-fifths of global electricity supply. Read more here.

Forbes Video: Retiring The C-Note Is A Ruse, Says ECRI

By SIMON CONSTABLE

There is an establishment move to eliminate high denomination currency, such as the hundred dollar bill and the 500 euro note. The typical reason given is that doing so would help crime. However, not everyone is buying that logic.

It’s actually a ruse, says Economic Cycle Research Institute cofounder Lakshman Achutan. Watch, listen and learn in this video.

Forbes Video: Recession Fears Still Overblown -- ECRI

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It was only a few weeks ago when investors seemed convinced that the economy was grinding to a halt.

Few people would disagree that growth isn’t exactly robust. Still there’s a long way to go before calling a recession, says ECRI’s Lakshman Achutan . Watch, listen, and learn in this video.

U.S. News: Why Fine Art Can Beautify Your Portfolio

By SIMON CONSTABLE

For the vast majority of Americans, investments fall into broadly three categories: stocks, bonds and real estate, with the latter usually being the family home. Perhaps some people will own some commodities.

Basically, that's it. But it doesn't have to be.

For those willing to put in some effort to educated, the fine art market provides opportunities to add some return, while reducing overall risk in a portfolio. Still, it isn't without potential problems. Read more here.

Forbes Video: ECRI: U.S. Headed For 'Stagflation Light'

By SIMON CONSTABLE

If you are old enough to remember the 1970s, then you’ll know that lava lamps and disco were only two of the horrors of the era. On the economics front, the U.S. was hit with stagnation and inflation at the same time. It came to be known as stagflation.

Unfortunately, a mild version of the same is set to arrive in the U.S. economy shortly. It’s what the Economic Cycle Research Institute calls stagflation-light. Watch, listen, and learn in this video.

Chris Li chrisli, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes Video: Why Silver May Head to $25

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Despite the steady increase in silver prices over the past month, there could be even more of a rally to come. Veteran commodity markets observer Jeff Christian, the founder of New York specialty consulting firm CPM Group, explains why the white metal could trade as high as $25 an ounce in this interview: Watch, listen, and learn here.

Forbes Video: What The Fed Can Learn From Carl Sagan

By SIMON CONSTABLE

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” said Carl Sagan, astronomer extraordinaire.

That philosophy should apply to anything. If you say you can read minds or levitate, then at least back it up with substantial evidence that you can do so.

The same should be true for the policies of the Federal Reserve, which has implemented some extraordinary monetary policy over the last few years. The question is, where is the evidence that it works?

Unfortunately, the Fed’s policy making experts haven’t got the goods to back up their claims, says Economic Cycle Research Institute’s cofounder Lakshman Acuthan. He explained to me what he meant in the latest installment of “Outside On Wall Street:” Watch, listen, and learn in this video.

Godot13 / Smithsonian Institute, 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes Video: Is the Metals Market Meltdown Over?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s been a long hard grind down for the metals markets over the past five years. It’s particularly bad when seen relative to the S&P 500.

It was only part way through the sell off that most people realized that things were dramatically changing for the commodities markets as China started to transition to a different sort of economy. Now, as commodities prices have rebounded a little, the question becomes, is the worst over?

The good news is probably yes, according to CPM Group managing partner Jeff Christian who explains why. He also warns not to expect a spectacular rally in the short term. Watch, listen, and learn in this video.

Forbes Video: How Smart People Mess Up Commodities

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Why is it that so many seasoned investors mess up when they decide to enter the commodities market? Otherwise smart people seem to lose all reason and are frequently left with a handful of nothing.

I sat done recently with veteran commodity markets investor Jeff Christian to discuss this matter. His experience goes back decades to the 1970s commodities boom and then he survived the two-decade bear market which lasted from 1980 through the turn of the millennium.

Watch, listen and learn in the following video…

U.S. News: Silver Prices May Be Ready to Shine

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Is it time to add a little silver to the mix in your portfolio? Investors doing so will need to be cautious and patient at the same time.

The market has certainly bounced considerably recently following a brutal years-long bear market where the value of the metal fell dramatically.

The slide in prices started in early 2011, when the price fell from $48.70 a troy ounce to $13.71 by late last year, according to data from the London Bullion Market Association. Prices have subsequently rebounded to more than $16 an ounce as investors piled in.

"We are seeing very strong investment demand and that makes me think silver prices can move higher," says Jeff Christian, managing partner at consulting firm CPM Group in New York, and a multi-decade veteran of the commodity markets.

Read more here.

Forbes: Is This The Worst Ever Bad Boss Behavior?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

This just in: The race to be the world’s worst boss just got some very stiff competition. It’s so bad, it may just take the cake.

I’m not sure whether the perpetrator is naturally gifted with appalling behavior, or whether whoever committed this latest atrocity of workplace malfeasance is studiously following my continuing series of becoming an appalling manager.

Either way, it makes your job of reaching the goal of being that diabolical non-leader much harder.

If you think I’m joking, here’s what happened?

Forbes: An Office Full Of Fear -- The Worst Boss Method

By SIMON CONSTABLE

[Part 16 of a continuing series on how you too can become an appalling manager.]

When employees are anxious or even scared they do their jobs badly or sometimes not at all. They mentally cower. You might find that they just stare blankly at their computer screens for hours on end or that they make many stupid mistakes.

As a potential “worst boss possible” you need to cultivate that environment of terror in the workplace.

How do you do that without running afoul of the increasingly politically correct workplace? It’s tricky, but doable. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting the job done.

U.S. News: Those So-Called Boring Stocks Are Pretty Exciting

By SIMON CONSTABLE

With summer just around the corner, it's easy to yearn for a trip to the beach and perhaps a ride on the roller coaster, like the famed Cyclone at Brooklyn's Coney Island. Whatever else it may be, the Cyclone will certainly give riders a thrill. If that floats your boat, then go for it. But what you shouldn't do is to seek out such thrills from investing.

Many people do, and it's a mistake. There are better, less stressful alternatives. Read more here.

TheStreet: Millennial Educators: Add Finance Classes for Elementary School Kids

By SIMON CONSTABLE

So much for the reputation of millennials being slackers. 

Teachers who were born between 1980 and 2000 are far more likely than their older peers to want financial literacy education added to the elementary school curriculum. 

It's not by a small margin either, with 62% of the younger group advocating the change, versus 51% of non-millennials. The older group tends to believe such education should be conducted primarily at home. Read more here.

pixabay free images, CC BY-SA 4.0, 

via Wikimedia Commons

Forbes: The Three Questions Bad Managers Ask Themselves Each Day

By SIMON CONSTABLE

At business school, our professors taught us that we’d be much more likely to achieve our goals if every day we just did something small towards meeting them.

It was as simple as asking yourself the same question every day: “What one thing can I do to inch myself closer to where I want to be?” If you keep asking that and then doing something in that vein, then eventually you’ll get there. That’s the theory and pretty much the practice.

The same is true for candidates to be the “world’s worst boss.” To make this easier for you I have developed three questions for you to ask yourself at the beginning of each workday. Read more here.

Photo by Jordan Bebek on Unsplash

Forbes: A Change Plan You Can Believe In

By SIMON CONSTABLE

A lot people and companies say they want to change, but then it quickly becomes clear that they don’t want to do anything different to make that change happen. That factor is at the root of a lot of personal and business problems.

Maybe you get stuck in a career you don’t like. Maybe you see the changes that are disrupting your industry, but you get stuck as opportunities dwindle. This happened to people who worked in book stores as Amazon revolutionized the way readers purchase books. When brick-and-mortar retailers finally wised up, it was too late. That’s business!

But for people, it is never too late to change. The only real issue is that to break free of the old and find something new requires an approach that you likely haven’t tried previously. Read more here.

Barron's: It’s Time to Pump Up Your Oil Exposure

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The price of crude oil tumbled to a low of $26 a barrel in February from more than $100 in mid-2014. The spot price of West Texas Intermediate crude settled at $37.26 on Thursday.

Some worry that oil prices could fall again, if heavy production continues in the U.S., Canada, and Kurdish-controlled Iraq and a weak world economy reduces demand. But when all of the risks are weighed, it’s hard not to draw the opposite conclusion: It’s far more likely that crude supplies will tighten, driving prices higher. Investors could play the trend by buying crude-oil futures or shares of the United States Oil exchange-traded fund (ticker: USO), which tracks crude prices. Read more here.

U.S. News: Say Goodbye to Utilities Stocks as We Know Them

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Watch out! Those "safe" utility stocks that you might be relying on for juicy dividends likely won't be so reliable forever. 

The heavily regulated industry is ripe for technological disruption in the same way that the music business, the news media and book publishing were upended over the last couple of decades. As with all disruption, there will be winners and losers. 

The change could be great for consumers, but investors need to be aware of how it might alter the relative attractiveness of different types of stocks. Read more here.

Forbes: For The Ideal Job, Look In The Mirror

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Getting a job of any sort following the financial crisis has been less than easy for many people, let alone landing the perfect position. For some, it has been a time when ideas of ever landing that dream role have been abandoned.

Still, now is the time to rekindle the hope that you can find what you want.

But first, you need to stop looking in the usual places. If such dream jobs ever existed inside a corporation, they almost certainly never appeared in display adverts and they weren’t posted on job boards.

So what should you do? Where should you look for that ideal role?

Try the mirror.

That’s the way one college professor Britain sees it. She wrote a book about how graduates created their own ideal roles. Read more here.

WSJ: What Is Multifactor Investing?

By SIMON CONSTABLE 
What is multifactor investing, and why are so many investment professionals talking about it now?

It isn’t nearly as confusing as some experts might leave you thinking. The “factors” refer to identifiable attributes that an investment has that affect its performance in the market. Read more here.

WSJ: Some Commodities Leave the Doghouse

By SIMON CONSTABLE

After years of shunning commodities, investors are once again making big bets on the sector by jumping into exchange-traded funds.

The buying is primarily in oil and gold, and not every observer of the market agrees that the money will stay put in these funds for very long. But the binge is still impressive. Read more here.

OZY: Is This The End of Cheap Food?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Enter your local supermarket and it’s hard to miss the mile-long piles of fresh produce. And when those heads of lettuce or cauliflower are in season, the prices can be low enough that feeding yourself doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. But that may not last much longer.

The world population continues to grow, after all, particularly in developing countries, where there’s been an increased appetite for protein. That’s put strain on the world’s grasslands, where livestock is raised for meat and milk production — and it’s worried scientists. A study recently published in the journal Nature Communications indicated that farmers would need to double their overall use of phosphorus in order to keep grasslands healthy enough to feed all that cattle. Such land hasn’t typically been fertilized directly by farmers, who do tend to add the mineral to arable land, but, with little likely relief on the horizon, that may need to change. Read more here.

Photo by Chad Montano on Unsplash