Archives for Commodities - Page 10
The alkali metals are the six elements that make up Group 1 of the periodic table, shown below. They are lithium (Li), sodium (Na), potassium (K), rubidium (Rb), cesium (Cs) and francium (Fr). They are called alkali metals because they all react, often violently, with water to form alkalis or…
Ronald-Peter Stoeferle and Mark Valek have released the 12th edition of In Gold we Trust, titled “Gold and the Turning of the Monetary Tides”. The authors are founders and managing partners of Incrementum AG, based in Liechtenstein. This asset management company takes the view that the current “uncovered credit money…
Until 2008 most iron ore was priced by negotiation between the seller and buyer. Contracts were typically for 12 months. As Chinese demand outstripped contracted supply, it began buying ore from India on a spot basis. Chinese companies then discovered that many contracts were for significantly higher prices than they…
There is a widespread consensus that we are just about to embark upon a long-lasting commodities boom. The most common rationale for that thought is that the ratio between equity prices and commodity prices is very low. The most common measure is the GSCI (Goldman Sachs Commodity Index) versus a…
For hundreds of years, up until about 1900, the gold silver ratio was around 16:1, as shown in the chart below. Since then it has fluctuated widely, from about 20:1 to 100:1. At the time of writing it is 80. There is a school of thought that this ratio does…
Many believe John Maynard Keynes considered gold to be “a barbarous relic”. In actual fact he was referring to the fixed exchange rate between the British pound and gold. During WWI the combatants abandoned the gold standard to allow inflation to pay for the war. Once the war was over…