Commodity Price Drivers: The Rational, the Irrational, and the Unpredictable

Many commodities have boomed, driven by a confluence of forces: ongoing monetary and fiscal stimulus; accelerating post-pandemic global economic growth; long-term underinvestment in commodity production capacity; pandemic-related supply chain and shipping disruptions; the rise of sustainability metrics for public companies; the push for decarbonization and the electrification of the global Read more…

Watch Those Curves

Until the pandemic broke last spring, all eyes were on the yield curve — the spread between short and long-term interest rates.  The inversion of that curve is thought to augur the approaching end of a period of economic expansion.  When long term (usually ten-year) rates drop below short term Read more…

Inflation Is Already Here

The great debate is on: inflation or deflation?  Which will win out, the massive fiscal and monetary impulse coming from the Federal stimulus measures and the huge Fed-fueled growth in the money supply?  Or the sharp contraction in spending resulting from the lockdown, with all its knock-on effects?  Much hangs Read more…