Friends of History Debating Society: The Winter Wheat Crop and Ukraine #FriendsofHistoryDebatingSociety

By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Leo Tolstoy, Wheat Expert and Author

Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Barron's: Bad Winter Weather Could Send Wheat Prices Higher

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Poor winter weather conditions combined with already-low global inventories could send prices for wheat higher by up to 19%, experts say. War in Eastern Europe could catapult them further.

“Europe, Ukraine, and the U.S. face some very unfavorable weather that will really set off a supply shortage concern,” says Shawn Hackett, president of Hackett Financial Advisors. Read more here.

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BARRON'S in Russian: В этом году дорожали все сырьевые товары, кроме золота

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

27.12.21, Москва, 11:25    Всех, кто надеялся на спокойный 2021 год на товарно-сырьевых рынках, ждало разочарование. Этот год был богат на сюрпризы, приводившие в замешательство даже самых опытных участников рынка.
 

Read more here. 

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Forbes: Omicron To Give Orange Juice Prices A Boost

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

The orange-juice market looks set to get a lift from the Omicron COVID-19 variant, and potential frosts. In other words, expect higher prices for frozen concentrated orange juice contracts on the ICE exchange, and eventually in the supermarket. Read more here.

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Forbes: Good News For Stocks, Investors Small And Large Are Increasingly Bearish

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Forget worries that the stock market is overvalued, at least for the time being.

Sentiment is what drives prices in the SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund, which tracks the largest U.S.-listed companies. Right now that sentiment is getting far more bearish, new research shows.

And that alone should be a reason to buy stocks. Read more here.

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Forbes: How Iran And Venezuela Are Economic Peas In A Pod

By SIMON CONSTABLE

News that Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro will visit the Islamic Republic of Iran soon could hardly be more symbolic. That’s because few countries are so well paired when it comes to economic mismanagement.

If the visit augers even more “cooperation” between the two countries, then observers should expect both countries to shrink further into oblivion. Read more here.

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Forbes: Why Lumber Won’t Boom In 2022

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

This year’s mega-bubble in lumber prices likely won’t stage a repeat performance next year. The problem is the economically sensitive housing sector is set to have a slowdown as interest rates and inflation squeeze would-be homebuyer wallets.

The result will be falling lumber prices, experts say. Read more here.

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Forbes: Investors Shrug As Ukraine-Russia Tensions Rise

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors seem to have offered little but a shrug to the threat of military conflict in eastern Ukraine. That’s surprising given the growing rhetoric out of the Kremlin.

Thursday Russian troops began a series of military drills near Ukraine’s border less than a day after Russian president Vladimir Putin said NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) should “go to hell,” press reports say. Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Omicron Christmas in Scotland

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Commodities surprises 2021

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Barron's: Commodities Gained Across the Board in 2021. Gold Was the Exception

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Anyone wanting a calm commodities market in 2021 would have been disappointed. It produced surprises that would have shocked even the most jaded market veterans.

Wheat, coffee, sugar, lumber, and energy prices all shot up. Perhaps most shocking was that the price jumps were driven by different factors. It wasn’t all upward: gold puzzled some investors, as prices slumped even while inflation surged. Read more here.

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Forbes: Joe Biden Snubs Britain In Blow To Free Trade

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

While most people weren’t looking, U.S. president Joe Biden snubbed the British people. His move not only continues a tradition begun by his former boss President Barrack Obama, but is also bad for the UK’s economic growth and stock market. Read more here.

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Forbes: Will Putin Invade Ukraine And What It Would Mean For Wall Street?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Forget the omicron variant of COVID-19 for a moment, there’s another threat to the financial markets: A potential invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Read more here.

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Forbes: A Key Economic Metric Shows Bad News For President Biden And Dems

By SIMON CONSTABLE 

Almost a year into his presidency and a key economic metric shows some bad news for President Joe Biden, and by extension the Democratic Party.

While growth of the economy remains robust despite the continued COVID-19 pandemic, that’s not what voters tend to focus on when they go tot he polls. And there’s Biden’s issue, because the bulk of the problem falls on the Federal Reserve, which doesn’t look likely to fix the matter any time soon. Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Omicron and Inflation Closing In On Scotland

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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Featured in U.S. Congressional Research Report on Markets.

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Discussion of markets and price discovery regarding index funds referred to a WSJ story written in 2017. Read more of the Congressional report here.

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Forbes Greece: Γιατί η Κίνα θέλει να συμμετέχει στην ανασυγκρότηση του Αφγανιστάν

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

Η Κίνα γλυκοκοιτάζει ήδη τον τεράστιο ορυκτό πλούτο του Αφγανιστάν. Μάλιστα, το Πεκίνο "θέτει” υποψηφιότητα για την αξιοποίησή του, προβάλλοντας ως δικαιολογία ότι θέλει να βοηθήσει στην ανοικοδόμηση της διχασμένης από τον πόλεμο χώρας που κυριαρχείται κατά κύριο λόγο από τους Ταλιμπάν.

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Afghan Village

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Briefings Magazine: When Bellies Talk, It’s Time to Listen

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s a terrifying thought for many who rely on coffee to function at even the most basic level: the cost of an everyday cup of joe may soon be as steep as that of the rare kopi luwak, easily a three-figure caffeine investment. Read more here.

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Forbes Brazil: Prepare-se! Se o Brasil sofrer outra seca nas próximas semanas, seu cappuccino pode ficar mais caro

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

“Se as chuvas não ocorrerem [no Brasil], fazendo com que a florada deixe de ser abortada, o mercado de café pode ficar muito animado novamente”, afirma um relatório recente da Hackett Financial Advisors, uma empresa financeira especializada no mercado de commodities.

Read more here.

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Featured Work Published in Professional Pensions

By SIMON CONSTABLE 

Over a decade ago, taxpayers helped save the global financial system. Now the finance sector could repay the favour by helping save the planet, experts told attendees. Read more here.

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Briefings: A New Production Cycle

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

If you’re making products in China that sell big in the US, the steady talk about tightening trade between the superpowers certainly can’t be great news. In fact, it’s terrible news.

But at least one company has already made news that analysts say will have a preemptive affect: a large maker of electronics announced plans to move a big plant to Wisconsin. Analysts say they think others will follow, raising these firms’ labor costs but giving them local tax breaks and wiping out any tariff threat. “There’s been a change in the zeitgeist that is pushing companies to manufacture closer to their customers,” says Alan Tonelson, founder of public policy blog RealityChek and a veteran analyst of international trade. Read more here.

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CityWire: How technology helps Cadre to stay competitive in commercial real estate

By SIMON CONSTABLE

The once-stodgy world of real estate investing is being transformed by innovative technology— a tremendous benefit to investors. Front and center in the fintech evolution is private real estate investment manager Cadre, which uses state-of-the-art machine learning and proprietary software to help lower costs and maximize returns. Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Scotland sends the Afghanistan refugees to forbidding Caithness

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Twenty years after Enron; & What is to be done?

  By SIMON CONSTABLE

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WSJ: When People Refer to ‘Fiscal Space,’ What Does It Mean?

By SIMON CONSTABLE

Investors may hear economists and market analysts using the term “fiscal space.” Those who are invested, or plan to invest, in countries with high debt levels should know what it means. Read more here.

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Time Magazine: How the Enron Scandal Changed American Business Forever

By SIMON CONSTABLE

It’s the kind of historic anniversary few people really want to remember.

In early December 2001, innovative energy company Enron Corporation, a darling of Wall Street investors with $63.4 billion in assets, went bust. It was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. Some of the corporation’s executives, including the CEO and chief financial officer, went to prison for fraud and other offenses. Shareholders hit the company with a $40 billion lawsuit, and the company’s auditor, Arthur Andersen, ceased doing business after losing many of its clients.

It was also a black mark on the U.S. stock market. At the time, most investors didn’t see the prospect of massive financial fraud as a real risk when buying U.S.-listed stocks. “U.S. markets had long been the gold standard in transparency and compliance,” says Jack Ablin, founding partner at Cresset Capital and a veteran of financial markets. “That was a real one-two punch on credibility. That was a watershed for the U.S. public.” Read more here.

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Markets look to be higher by year's end

 By SIMON CONSTABLE

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CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor: Omicron in Scotland

  By SIMON CONSTABLE

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