In May I warned Barron's readers in this column that rice prices were set to surge. And they did, rising 9% on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, to more than $16.30 per hundredweight in early August from just shy of $15 three months earlier. Prices have retreated since, to around $15 recently. But that doesn't mean the rally is done.
Analysts say the market is poised for a price surge that could take rice even higher, with futures prices exceeding $20. Read more here.
Genius physicist
Albert Einstein famously commented that insanity is defined as doing the
same thing over again and expecting a different result. It’s an idea that Congress needs to wake up to
More
precisely, it needs to stop playing chicken with its fiscal decisions.
The last few years we’ve seen nothing but dysfunction. Remember the
debt ceiling debate last year? That was
when our elected officials waited until the very last minute to come to a
decision.
That sort of behavior isn’t doing us as a country any favors. Quite frankly it’s nuts.
It isn’t just me that thinks so. Ratings agency Moody’s just scolded Congress. The firm that determines the riskiness of a borrower said Tuesday the U.S. risks losing its coveted triple-A rating if Congress
doesn’t shape up. Specifically it pointed to the pending tax increases we face starting in January if the government doesn’t act swiftly and prudently.
Why does what Moody’s say matter to you? If the U.S. loses its
triple-A rating, it will have to pay more to borrow. If it pays more then you will also, for everything from credit cards and car loans to mortgages.
That’s something you need to think about when you go to the polls in a little less than eight weeks.
How much yield you earn from a fund is important. But calculating it can be tricky.
In basic terms, a fund's yield is whatever the dividend or interest
payment is divided by the current price. If the annual dividend is $1
and the price of the fund is $20, then the yield is 5%.
But as with most things, it's rarely that simple. That's because fund
investments and payouts change over time. So, savvy investors should
look at different ways of measuring yield. In simple terms, here's what
you need to understand. See original post here.
What will it mean for commodities if "Helicopter Ben" Bernanke cranks up the printing press once again?
Some investors simply expect prices to soar across the board if the
Federal Reserve chief institutes a new round of quantitative easing,
aimed at stimulating economic growth. They see such a move flooding
markets with dollars, weakening the U.S. currency, and pushing up the
prices of dollar-denominated commodities, as stronger economic activity
boosts demand. See original post here.
By SIMON CONSTABLE
Wall Street professionals earn a lot of their oversized paychecks playing the roles of modern-day clairvoyants, peering into the future and telling investors where the economy is heading.
As the presidential election drones on, you could be forgiven for thinking that the country is headed over a cliff. After all, that's what the one guy keeps saying about the other guy.
Here's a news flash: Whoever wins, the country probably isn't collapsing.
But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of uncertainty about the economy—and lots of reasons to be cautious.
We asked some of the savviest fortune tellers on Wall Street to look beyond the election rhetoric and give a sense of what to expect in the next six to 12 months. Here is the short version.
With many things in economics more is better. More food, more production, more profits — generally all good. But when it comes to health insurance more might actually be worse. In June the Supreme Court ruled that the health-care law requiring us all to have health insurance was constitutional. A lot of people cheered saying it would pave the way to solve the nightmare problem of health-care costs in the U.S.
Not so fast. Insurance may actually be the root of the problem with our health-care costs. Or in other words, more people having insurance could actually make things worse. Read morehere.
