But the project got tied up in logistical and contract problems, and it never got past some initial test shafts before it ground to a halt when Chinese staff left in 2014 because of continued violence.

Months after the Taliban seized Kabul in August, consolidating power over the country, the group’s newly installed acting Minister for Mining and Petroleum Shahbuddin Dilawar urged his staff to re-engage Chinese state-run companies.

Ziad Rashidi, the ministry’s director of foreign relations, approached the consortium made up by MCC, China Metallurgical Group Corporation and Jiangxi Copper Ltd. Dilawar has had two virtual meetings with MCC in the last six months, according to company and ministry officials. He urged them to return to the mine, terms unchanged from the 2008 contract.

A technical committee from MCC is due in Kabul in the coming weeks to address the remaining obstacles. Relocating the artifacts is key. But MCC is also seeking to renegotiate terms, particularly to reduce taxes and slash the 19.5% royalty rate by nearly half, the percentage owed to the government per ton of copper sold.

“Chinese companies see the current situation as ideal for them. There is a lack of international competitors and a lot of support from the government side,” Rashidi said.

China’s ambassador to Afghanistan has said talks are ongoing, but nothing more. Acquiring rare minerals is key for Beijing to maintain its standing as a global manufacturing powerhouse. While stopping short of recognizing the Taliban government, China has stood out from the international community by calling for the unfreezing of Afghan assets and has kept its diplomatic mission running in Kabul.

For Afghanistan, the contract at Mes Aynak could bring in $250 to $300 million per year to state revenues, a 17% increase, as well as $800 million in fees over the length of the contract, according to government and company officials. That’s a significant sum as the country grapples with widespread poverty, exacerbated by financial shortfalls after the Biden administration froze Afghan assets and international organizations halted donor funds. Some have since resumed.

The Taliban needs cash and China needs resources. That suggests there is room for an agreement. China’s treatment of the Uighur minority is unlikely to get in the way of real politik. China has the capital, market and will to do what is necessary to get projects done.

“What Tesla has done with nickel is a hidden competitive advantage,” said Gene Munster, managing partner of Loup Ventures. “Tesla continues to be a couple of steps ahead of the rest.”

Musk has repeatedly flagged nickel supply as the company’s biggest concern as it boosts output, and the metal’s availability is a source of anxiety throughout the EV sector.

Battery-sector demand for nickel is expected to jump to about 1.5 million tons in 2030 from 400,745 tons this year, according to Bloomberg NEF.

“Please mine more nickel,” Musk urged producers on an earnings call two years ago. “Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way.”

Tesla’s management deserves credit for ensuring they have access to the resources needed to make production targets. Tesla’s vertically integrated business model is what the conventional auto sector used to do. Ford closed its last steel plant nearly thirty years ago. Selling steel to the major US automakers now represents the bulk of Cleveland Cliffs’ revenue.

As the geopolitical environment grows progressively more complicated, and competition for access to supply of copper, nickel, lithium, manganese and cobalt intensify, inventory management is going to become more important for major industrial companies.

Ukraine and Russia failed to clinch a cease-fire in talks that ended in Istanbul on Tuesday, with Moscow saying it will reduce military operations in areas where its forces are being pushed back and Kyiv calling for security guarantees from European Union and NATO members.

U.S. President Joe Biden said he’ll see how Russia acts on a pullback and “see what they have to offer” in further talks with Ukraine.

A Ukrainian negotiator said his country is seeking guarantees for territory that doesn’t include Russian-controlled areas and that Kyiv is willing to discuss the status of occupied Crimea. Russia indicated a meeting was possible between President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Russia’s delegation left Istanbul, and no date or time was set for any potential future talks, according to a person close to the Moscow delegation. European nations expelled more Russian diplomats from their capitals, even as stocks rose and oil fell on optimism for progress in the negotiations.

This brief history of Finland’s fight against the Soviet Union in 1939 and again in 1944 bears some striking similarities to what is going on in Ukraine today. The most likely outcome remains that Russia will hold the territory it has already won and will negotiate hard for a land bridge to Crimea. In return Ukraine will receive new security guarantees, adopt a neutral foreign policy and will eventually be allowed to join the EU.

It is not valid to interpret inverted term spreads as independent measures of impending recession. They largely reflect the expectations of market participants. Among various terms spreads to consider, the 2-10 spread offers a particularly muddled view. Especially in the present circumstances when the 2-10 spread is very much out of step with the near-term forward spread, which offers a much more precise view of market expectations over the next year and a half, it is difficult to concoct a reason to be concerned about the flattening of the 2-10 spread. In contrast, if and when the near-term spread does contract, we know that investors will then be expecting a cessation in monetary policy tightening. While such a shift in expectations could well be precipitated by future concerns about a recession, that need not be the case. A more benign cause would be a marked easing in inflation and inflation expectations that allow for a cessation of policy firming.

The benign outcome is more often referred to as a soft landing. The 10-2 year spread closed at 1 basis point and was inverted for a brief period intraday. The 10-year-3-month is at 189 basis points which is an historically wide diversion.

If an EROEI of 10:1 resulted in de minimis economic growth, what can we use this 10:1 number to infer about how high oil prices can go today? An EROEI of 10:1 means that 10% of all energy goes to sustain the energy supply. If energy is a good proxy for general economic activity, then an economy should stagnate once 10% of its GDP goes towards producing (and by extension consuming) energy. Evidence backs this up. Many academic studies suggest an economy will fall into recession once energy takes up 10% of total GDP – an empirical result that agrees with our theory.

In 2008, energy prices were approximately 10% of GDP right before the global financial crisis. If oil represents about half of all energy consumed, this means an economy will stall when oil represent about 5% of GDP. In 2008, the US consumed 18.8 m b/d. At $120 per barrel that equated to $823 bn or 5.6% of the $14.7 tr US GDP. The economy fell into recession shortly thereafter. In 2012-14, oil consumption never exceeded 3.5% of US GDP and prices stayed between $90 and $100 per barrel with no impact on either demand or economic activity.

Today, oil represents less than 3.3% of US GDP and would have to rise to $140 per barrel before approaching the critical 5% threshold. Why do we focus only on the US? Demand is the most elastic in wealthy countries with high energy intensities and the least elastic in developing countries that need energy to fuel their ongoing development. In 2008, prices spiked as high as $145 per barrel albeit temporarily. In this cycle, we believe oil prices will at some point reach, and potentially significantly exceed the previous $145 per barrel peak before we begin to see evidence of demand destruction.

How high do prices have to go to limit demand might not be the correct question. It’s well understood that oil spikes are one of the leading causes of recessions, because energy is a tax on consumption. That suggests the speed of the price rise is at least as important as the headline rate.

“Gazprom would need to ask buyers to agree to change the payment terms in contracts,” said Trevor Sikorski, head of natural gas, coal and carbon at Energy Aspects Ltd. “It reopens the contracts, and buyers could ask for shorter-terms for instance.”

Some 58% of Gazprom’s gross gas sales abroad were in euros as of the third quarter of last year, according to the producer’s most recent bond prospectus. Another 39% were in U.S. dollars. The press office of gas giant Gazprom PJSC declined to comment on whether its long-term supply agreements allow a switch to ruble payments.

Russia announced earlier this month a list of 48 states deemed hostile. They included the U.S., Japan, all European Union members, Switzerland and Norway. As a result, the bulk of Russian gas exports now go to “unfriendly” nations.

“At the same time, I want to emphasize that Russia will definitely continue to supply natural gas in line with the volumes and prices and pricing mechanisms set forth in the existing contracts,” Putin said.

In the first 15 days of March, Gazprom exported an average of 500 million cubic meters per day to countries outside the former Soviet Union, including those in the EU, China and Turkey. Of the total, flows toward Europe averaged 384 million cubic meters per day, the producer’s data showed.

This change of policy serves the short-term requirement of creating demand for the Ruble which will make enforcing sanctions even more difficult. That suggests the recent low of the Ruble near RUB120 is likely to be a medium-term nadir.

“It has been an amazing accomplishment for Bitcoin to have achieved what it has done, not being hacked, having it work and having it adopted the way it has been,” he told MarketWatch in December. 

“I believe in the blockchain technology. … It has earned credibility.”

This might be a case of “if you can’t beat um, join um”. The reality is as bond prices decline, money is pulling out and is looking for a home where its value will hold versus the declining purchasing power of fiat currencies.

*Almost certainly widespread famine within a year*: _15% of world’s calories come from wheat. 1/3 of all wheat comes from Russia and Ukraine…_

Russia has banned export of wheat; a lot of wheat supply blocked. Whole planet earth operates on a 90-day food supply. Once we stop making food the world runs out in 90 days. Most vulnerable nations lose the supply first; very quickly a massive bifurcation. Already have 1bn living on under 1200 calories…

The even bigger problem is the future planting season. Wheat spring planting season is right now; not a lot of planting going on…

This is because of the fertilizer problem. All fertilizer is made up of nitrogen, phosphorus, or potassium. All farmers must use this. Without fertilizer crop does not grow. Nitrogen is made from natural gas. Nat Gas prices have doubled. The price of nitrogen-based fertilizer has gone from 200 per ton to 1000 per ton. 10% of world phosphate and 25% pf potash is from Russia and that has been banned for export. Prices on phosphate and potash have sky-rocketed too. Now it is so expensive to grow crop that farmers are pulling out of production.

The world is “scrambling” for food right now, corn, soybeans etc. skyrocketing. Strategic reserves of food being released now…

A bad weather year can be disastrous. Regardless, it will be a humanitarian disaster within 12 months and we will see hundreds of millions will go starving (think famine)

We just don’t have enough food. The way supply chains are set up just don’t work.

Wheat prices accelerated to test the 2008 peak near 1200¢ and paused over the last week. War in Ukraine and the slow start, or potential absence, of a planting season are obviously major considerations for its customers. Russia’s efforts to capture the entire Black Sea coast are an additional obvious headwind to exports.

Trafigura Group, one of the world’s top oil and metals traders, has been holding talks with private equity groups to secure additional financing as soaring prices trigger giant margin calls across the commodities industry.

Trafigura has in recent weeks stepped up efforts to seek new funding from beyond its traditional group of bank lenders, according to people familiar with the matter.

The trader held talks with Blackstone Inc. for an investment of around $2 billion to $3 billion in preference shares or a similar hybrid instrument, but those talks ended without a deal, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions were private. Trafigura has also approached Apollo Global Management Inc., BlackRock Inc. and KKR & Co., the people said.

The discussions with private equity firms have been broad-based, ranging from financing for specific projects to raising funding at a company level, the people said. There’s no certainty any of the discussions will progress to a deal, they said.

Trafigura emerged from the last commodity bull market as the leader in commodity trading. As investment banks closed desks, sold warehouses and ships, the trading house stepped in and took market share. Today, most of the big trading houses for commodities are privately owned. They also do not have the balance sheets of banks. When volatility steps out to multiple standard deviations, models go awry.

“The American economy is very strong and well positioned to handle tighter monetary policy,” Powell told a press conference Wednesday following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. “We are attentive to the risks of further upward pressure on inflation and inflation expectations.” He also said that officials could move faster on policy tightening if needed.

The hike is likely the first of several to come this year, as the Fed said it “anticipates that ongoing increases in the target range will be appropriate,” and Powell repeated his pledge to be “nimble.”

“I saw a committee that is acutely aware of the need to return the economy to price stability,” he told reporters, characterizing the mood around the table as policy makers debated the outlook. “It is determined to use its tools to do so.”

In the Fed’s so-called dot plot, officials’ median projection was for the benchmark rate to end 2022 at about 1.9% -- in line with traders’ bets but higher than previously anticipated -- and then rise to about 2.8% in 2023. They estimated a 2.8% rate in 2024, the final year of the forecasts, which are subject to even more uncertainty than usual given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and new Covid-19 lockdowns in China are buffeting the global economy.

The market took the first hike in this cycle in its stride and not least because it has been fully priced in over the last four months. Remaining nimble is going to be essential. Uncertainties abound, not the least of which is China’s problem with containing the omicron variant is only just beginning. Predicting 1.9% by the end of the year implies at least a 25-basis point hike at every meeting. That seems ambitious in the extreme. 

The market of protein foods is witnessing two key developments. The first is the efficiency drive, through new technology, among existing producers of animal protein food, such as milk, meat, fish or eggs. Better efficiency comes with smaller carbon footprint; indeed, the top 10% best performing farming businesses reduce theirs by double digits by adopting new innovative solutions.

Even more good news for companies: because most of the innovations work alongside existing production systems, their implementation will not require additional capital expenditure. There are also some products that target specific issues, such as cows belching methane – a greenhouse gas more potent in causing global warming than carbon dioxide. We now have a remarkable innovative food supplement that can suppress the production of methane by 30% in dairy cattle, and up to 90% in beef.

The second type of innovations is about finding new sources of non-animal proteins. Everything from using canola to single cell proteins. Recent study reported that “considerable progress has been made towards the development and production of meat alternatives, including cultured meat, plant-based meat alternatives, microbial protein, edible fungi, microalgae, and insect protein.”

We expect a combination of advanced scientific expertise and investment will be required in the years to come not only to develop new sources of proteins but also test how safe they are for human health and well-being. In the meantime, the diet is not the only factor that impacts our climate and other sustainability factors, it is also the operation of the supply chains themselves.

Arguably, the ESG movement found its first target in Nestle. For years activists lobbied the public to stop consuming Nestle products because of labour and business practices they found distasteful and often with good reason. Today’s the carbon footprint of the food sector is under scrutiny and the ESG model is part of every corporate communication.

“The U.S. can try to make Saudi Arabia increase production, but why would they accept a break in the alliance, which is key for them?” said Paolo Scaroni, former chief executive officer of Italian oil company Eni SpA. 

There’s a political dynamic at play to explain the kingdom’s fidelity to Moscow beyond the gusher of oil revenue. 

Where Donald Trump cultivated a particularly friendly relationship with Saudi Arabia — making his first foreign trip as U.S. president to Riyadh — ties have turned colder under President Joe Biden. On the campaign trail, Biden pledged to make the kingdom a “pariah,” in part because of the killing of columnist Jamal Khashoggi. He will only deal with the elderly King Salman, relegating Mohammed bin Salman to interact with more lowly officials despite being the kingdom’s defacto ruler. 

By contrast, Riyadh’s OPEC+ partnership with Moscow calmed years of distrust between the two oil rivals, and saved the kingdom from relying exclusively on Washington.

“Saudi Arabia doesn’t want to switch horses mid-race when they do not know if the other horse is actually going to show up,” said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets. 

The USA going cap in hand to countries like Iran, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia this week, with the request to boost oil supplies must have been both humbling and galling for the Biden administration. For the all the talk of a more enlightened foreign policy the arrogance, even so-called allies, have been treated with is pretty astounding. International rulers will be told not to take it seriously. Afterall they were working in service to the higher cause of abating climate change.

Third, fixed income markets, largely reward-free risk pre-Ukraine, now face a further knock-out blow. The pressure for rate rises justified by existing 5%+ inflation will be ramped up by the commodity scarcity from sanctions on 12% of the world’s oil production and much of its strategic metals. Add a negative credit effect on bond yields derived from civil unrest in countries relying on imported wheat to feed youthful, volatile populations; Ukraine, at 30% of global total, is the world’s largest supplier. The only cure is a lighter hand on the rate rise tiller from central banks now wary of recession 12-18 months from now. This contradiction is negative for long rates.

With a supply shock, the only way to control inflationary pressures is by either quickly solving it or cutting demand. Companies are pulling out of Russia every day. The Russian government is putting together plans to take over abandoned positions in domestic companies. Russian billionaires are being both sanctioned and censured in almost every OECD market. We are not going back to normal anytime soon; if ever. The repercussions of this economic, financial, business, and social unwind are only beginning to be felt.

So, perhaps Jerusalem is right to walk a fine line with Moscow and prioritize strategic over moral concerns. Perhaps, but it’s distressingly difficult to watch. In essence, Israel has muted its voice as Russia slaughters Ukrainian innocents, while threatening the liberal order from which Israel greatly benefits.

Strategically, Israel is heavily dependent on Russia in at least two ways. First, Russia controls most of the airspace over Syria, and has permitted Israel to strike targets there, including Iranian weapons facilities, as well as weapons convoys designed for Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group, which is positioned just over Israel’s northern border.

Second, Russia is one of five permanent UN Security Council members and, as such, is participating in negotiations in Vienna over reviving the 2015 global nuclear deal with Iran. While Washington seeks to resuscitate the deal in hopes of restraining Iran’s nuclear progress, Jerusalem fears that a new deal will pose the same problems as the original one – including sunset dates for restrictions on Iranian nuclear activities, a weak international regime for inspecting Iranian nuclear sites, and no curbs on Iran’s related and growing ballistic missile program.   

Most of the financial market commentary has focused on the strategic resources and oil exports Russia represented. That tends to ignore the fact Russia is a geopolitical heavyweight with stakes in most of the world’s pressure points for strife. Cutting it off from the financial and economic world will exacerbate its appetite to cause trouble in the geopolitical theatre.

Ukraine is open to discussing Russia’s demand of neutrality as long as it’s given security guarantees, though it won’t surrender a “single inch” of territory, a top foreign policy aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

“Surely, we are ready for a diplomatic solution,” Ihor Zhovkva, Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday. 

The aide reinforced Ukraine’s demand for security guarantees “from the U.S., from Great Britain, from Germany” and others -- “only security guarantees from Russia will not be enough,” though he declined to spell out what those measures would entail. 

Preconditions for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin would be a cease-fire and the withdrawal of Russian troops, Zhovka said.

When the war is over, Ukraine is most likely to follow a Finland-type solution. They may apply for membership of the EU, but not NATO. They will receive security guarantees from their neighbours, but will need to retain a significant military and constant vigilance nonetheless. Relations with Russia will be irrevocably damaged and portions of Ukraine will likely become part of Russian territory. However, the fact remains many of Russia’s pipelines flow through Ukraine’s territory. Trading relationships will be necessary.

President Joe Biden said the U.S. will ban imports of Russian fossil fuels including oil, a major escalation of Western efforts to hobble Russia’s economy that will further strain global crude markets.

“We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,” Biden said Tuesday at the White House. “We will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war.”

The U.S. move will be matched in part by the U.K., which will announce a ban on Russian oil imports on Tuesday, though it will continue to allow natural gas and coal from the country. Other European nations that rely more heavily on Russian fuels will not participate. The scope of Biden’s action was not immediately clear, including exceptions and the impact on shipments already in transit.

Biden’s move is a significant step in his sanctions campaign against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. While so-called self-sanctioning by the oil industry has limited some purchases of Russian barrels, an outright U.S. ban would further weigh on the market and increase volatility.

If sanctions are to work, they need to hit the target where it hurts. If Russia is to be chastened, more of the world needs to stop buying its products. That’s going to come with massive dislocations to the global economy. It’s a necessary sacrifice because appeasement does not work.

Germany's Enercon on Monday said a "massive disruption" of satellite connections in Europe was affecting the operations of 5,800 wind turbines in central Europe.

It said the satellite connections stopped working on Thursday, knocking out remote monitoring and control of the wind turbines, which have a total capacity of 11 gigawatt (GW).

"The exact cause of the disruption is not yet known. The communication services failed almost simultaneously with the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine," Enercon said in a statement.

The company said it had no further information on who or what may have caused the disruption.

Enercon has informed Germany's cybersecurity watchdog BSI and is working with the relevant providers of the satellite communication networks to resolve the disruption, which it said affected around 30,000 satellite terminals used by companies and organisations from various sectors across Europe.

Priorities change. When prices are low consumers value choice and comfort. When prices are high, they value efficiency. When supply is threatened, they will value resiliency.

The two things anyone seeking to predict future trouble in the stock market looks at are the yield curve spread and oil prices.

The spread the 10-year and the 2-year is down to 23 basis points, from 120 in October. At the current pace of compression, it could be negative by the end of the week.

The 10-year - 3-month has generally moved ahead of the 10-2 spread but is not doing so on this occasion. That is because bond funds are focusing on short duration bonds because inflationary pressures take a bigger toll on long-dated issues.

Just renewed my subscription for another year. Keep up the good work!

Reference your commentary on 25 Feb re Iain Little’s article on the effects of the Ukraine conflict and commodity supply, you may be interested in the attached research note by Maquarie on the growing strength of the lithium and rare earths supply/demand fundamentals.

Thank you for this insightful report and your long support of the service. Here is a section:

We estimate that 80% of the EVs used motors that contained rare earths, while 100% of PHEV used motors that contained rare earths. Our demand forecasts for rare earths assume one standard passenger PHEV consumes 4-6kg of rare earth magnets while a pure EV uses 5-10kg of rare earth magnets for its motors.

The demand for rare earth magnets would be supported by growth in accelerating offshore wind power capacity installation and higher penetration of inverter air conditioners, as the world is moving towards its climate change goals. We have forecast rare earth magnets intensity of 0.67 tons per MW for direct drive wind turbines and 0.1kg per unit for inverter air conditioners.

A widening deficit remains our base case in the medium-term, with the speed at which new entrants can enter the market presenting a key risk to our base case. In the longer-term the market deficit starts to widen significantly from 2027, suggesting that more new sources of supply will be required to meet the shortfall.

In 2020 I began a series of reviews of longer-term themes which will be updated going forward on the first Friday of every month. These reviews can be found via the search bar using the term “Secular Themes Review”.

When Wall Street indices were breaking out to new highs in 2012/13 the world looked to be on the cusp of a golden era of globalisation, co-operation, and the inevitable rise of the middle class. Higher living standards would breed a more tolerant society with greater respect for the environment and for our fellow global citizens.

In predicting a secular bull market, we were correct about the market call. Wall Street and the FANGMANT stocks have outperformed global indices by a wide margin over the last decade. It was also correct to expect oil to underperform because of the bounty arising from shale oil and gas. Predicting a decade ago that the USA would become energy independent was seen as maverick. Today it’s a fact.

The social upheaval that began with the monetary and regulatory response to the credit crisis represents a significant threat to the utopian ideal of the everyman. Exporting job security in return for cheap products has hollowed out the middle class in most developed countries. The evolution of the subscription business model has also reduced individuals to cash flows; where ownership of hard assets is marketed as an outdated concept. This has contributed to significant social upheaval and the response to the coronavirus pandemic amplified it.  

At the same time, the trend of geopolitical tension continues to rise. The concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of people, companies and countries is creating greater competition. China is much more active in staking its claim to global trade than in the past and Russia’s current invasion of Ukraine is reflective of a desperate need for both security and relevance in a world that is actively working to use less of its primary export; oil.

hello Eoin 1) could you please suggest a trustworthy ETF on Uran, with a well balance geopolitical profile 2) I would very much welcome a chart seminar, I hope you will be able to organize one in the not too distant future.

We are currently looking at June 6th and 7th for The Chart Seminar in London. Sarah is in the process of securing a venue at present and as soon as the location is confirmed we will begin taking bookings. I am very much looking forward to meeting subscribers in person after an internval that has been far to lengthy. 

Russia said it would press forward with its invasion of Ukraine until its goals are met, as troops were seen moving in a large convoy toward the capital, Kyiv. In the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, the mayor said residential areas were being bombed in what he called “a war to destroy the Ukrainian people.”

Hitting the TV tower is aimed at attempting to put Ukraine’s ability to appeal directly to Russia’s population out of commission. The impassioned broadcasts from Ukraine’s president must be particularly annoying for the Russian aggressors. Unfortunately, the success of the initial resistance means Russia is doubling down on the bombardment.

The proximate global economic effect will be on commodity supply (the complacent West taking much of the blame). Much has been made of Ukraine and Russia as the largest (30%) breadbasket in the world and the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline dilemma facing the EU/ Germany. But few would have predicted this week’s announcement by a Democrat President to expand domestic mining in strategic metals (lithium, graphite, rare earths, cobalt, rhodium, nickel, zinc etc). This points to a supply chain challenge where ESG objections now take 2nd place. The USA is dependent on Russia for much of its strategic supply chain: C4F6 gas and neon for chips, palladium for sensors, plating material and computer memory (MRAM), titanium for engines, fans, fighter jet disks, missiles, satellites. Russia needs high end chips, where the USA has edge, but where Russia is said to be able to obstruct the USA’s chip supply chain. These squeezes, offsets and stand-offs occur at a time when inflation is already above 5% for major economies.

It currently takes 7-10 years to get a mine permitted in the USA. In Canada and Australia, the average is 2. For the last forty years, outsourcing supply of raw materials, other than oil and gas, has been the de facto position of successive US administrations.

I have met Putin, and I have watched him as a journalist since before he became president. My analysis of his actions was always based on the assumption of his rationality. There was always something to gain, a manageable risk of losing. Perhaps I was wrong from the start. Perhaps Putin has changed in recent years as his close circle narrowed and negative selection expelled people with a broader vision from the ranks of his advisors. Quite likely, Ukraine has long constituted an exception from Putin’s rationality, as most of its people time and time again chose the Western path, away from Putin’s vision of the Russian World.

I left Russia after the Crimea annexation because I couldn’t accept it and felt it was a great historical wrong — both for Ukraine and for Russia. But I ended up returning to that assumption of rationality. I analyzed Putin’s moves from a cost and benefit perspective. I have a lot of rethinking to do.

The invasion is an irrational move. It makes any further negotiations with Putin and his clique pointless: There is, quite clearly, nothing he won't do, no line he won’t cross, no matter what he says or what deal he makes. From this point on, autarky is the only feasible economic choice for Russia, and a retreat into isolation is the only remaining cultural and political choice. At the same time, Russia's dependence on China, which has grown in recent years, is no longer a matter of choice. Any security benefits from turning Ukraine — and neighboring Belarus, from whose territory Putin also attacked — into a buffer state are illusory since Russia also borders actual NATO member states, which now will arm themselves as heavily as possible. 

I was not expecting a full-scale invasion, but my positions benefitted anyway. I agree we are now in a new environment and it will be years before Russia’s relationship with most of its biggest trading partners is repaired.

Political pressure for Petrobras to make fuel cheaper for Brazilians is mounting ahead of presidential elections in October, but the giant oil producer has instead focused on taking advantage of the windfall from crude’s rally to shore up its finances and reward investors.  

Once the world’s most indebted oil producer, Petrobras last year managed to reduce its debt below $60 billion ahead of schedule, thanks also to the sale of refineries. 

Meanwhile on the campaign trail, former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is leading the polls and calling for fuel price relief and more investments in refining. This has put Bolsonaro on the defensive, though a recent rally in the local currency has helped mitigate the impact of higher international oil prices.

Under Lula’s Workers’ Party, Petrobras lost an estimated $40 billion during the 2012-2014 oil price boom because of policies to make gasoline and diesel cheaper. Since the party lost power in 2016, two pro-business administrations have transformed Petrobras into a leaner, more profitable outfit. 

Cordial relations with much of the rest of the world favour Brazilian exports of raw commodities. That’s particularly true of its oil and iron-ore exports as geopolitical tensions with Russia are amplified.

Using these variables, our findings show that Kazakhstan and the Philippines are the most vulnerable credits in the IG universe.1 The massive protests that broke out in Kazakhstan earlier this year in response to soaring commodity prices serve as confirmation of our analysis, and it bears watching what happens in the Philippines as the May elections approach.  On the least vulnerable side, higher-income countries, including Hungary and Uruguay, unsurprisingly fare better. Meanwhile, HY credits are much more dispersed. Kenya and Nigeria appear to be the most vulnerable, and the months leading up to the Kenyan general election in August could be a volatile period, as they have in past elections. The least vulnerable HYs, from Serbia to Sri Lanka, are very diversified from a geographical point of view. It is somewhat reassuring that Brazil, a continental giant holding elections in October, is not in the most vulnerable group. We will continue to monitor these vulnerabilities closely as part of our credit selection process.

Nothing contributes to more social stress than surging food prices. The risks to food supplies remain skewed to the upside over the medium term. However, the initial surges for food commodities were not sustained today. That suggests we are likely to see at least some unwinding of short-term overbought conditions.

One of the questions subscribers as most often is how to find details of my open trades. To make it easier I will simply repost the latest summary daily until there is a change.

Stocks tanked amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine: The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.3%, over 400 points, while the S&P 500 lost 1% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite 1.4%.

Global stock markets took a hit after Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to recognize the separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, ordering Russian troops to move into the region in order to “maintain peace.”

The move was widely condemned by the West, with the European Union and United Kingdom both unveiling economic sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, while the United States will reportedly release a new round of sanctions later in the day.

Many western officials continued to warn that Russian troops moving into eastern Ukraine to keep the “peace” could be a not so subtle pretext for a full invasion, with U.K. Health Minister Sajid Javid saying on Tuesday that “the invasion of Ukraine has begun.” 

Oil prices surged on the news, with Brent crude rising to more than $94 per barrel amid concerns that Russia’s energy exports could be disrupted.

Granting official recognition to, and moving troops into a region that has been ruled independently of Ukraine since 2014 is an escalation of tensions. However, it still falls into the brinksmanship category regardless of claims to the contrary. Russia appears to be serious about their demands that Ukraine not join NATO. They are also adamant that missile batteries not be placed within its neighborhood. 

Leveraged funds’ net short positioning in the yen has increased in seven out of the last nine weeks and sits at its most bearish since November, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released Friday. Net positioning in the Swiss franc, another preferred haven asset for currency traders, has been short since September, though it did grow less bearish in last week’s CFTC data. 

The pullback from havens was evident in the spot market on Tuesday, when the Japanese and Swiss currencies retreated while other major counterparts gained against the U.S. dollar. The moves signal that the market is comfortable with where the Russia situation is going, Brad Bechtel, a strategist at Jefferies LLC in New York, said in a Tuesday note. 

“No real downside momentum in the JPY crosses on any of these recent Russia headlines the past few weeks,” he wrote. 

“Even now, as we are on the brink of the conflict, we still do not see JPY perform. Same with the USD and CHF,” he wrote, referring to the Swiss franc.

The news flow from Ukraine is exciting but the trajectory of interest rates is much more important for markets. The defining characteristic of this earnings season was companies reporting better than expected figures for Q4 but disappointing on guidance. Home Depot was the latest example today. Markets are looking at slower growth and higher rates first and the wider geopolitical tension is a secondary concern.

The American Bureau of Shipping, which classifies vessels for their operating safety, last year raised the need to address safety issues such as structural integrity and maintenance challenges around the global fleet of FPSOs, with over 50 of them reaching the end of their design life in the next five years. More than half are over 30 years old and a quarter over 40 years old. 

Aging infrastructure is rarely the top priority for producers. The oil sector is reluctant to commit capital at present because there is a lot of uncertainty about how those investments will be viewed by both investors and the media.

Gold Fields Ltd. said a turnaround at its giant mine in South Africa is starting to pay off after more than a decade of losses that’s weighed on the Johannesburg-based company.

South Deep, which sits on the third-biggest known body of gold-bearing ore, almost tripled the net cash it generated to $97 million in 2021 as production rose and the rand strengthened. Output at Gold Fields’ last South African mine is expected to climb a further 30% over the next three to four years. 

That will complete a turnaround after years of financial bleeding that was compounded by power shortages, labor unrest and regulatory uncertainty in South Africa. It vindicates the management’s decision to restructure the mine after investors pressured Gold Fields to either end the losses or sell the asset.

“I am absolutely convinced this was the right thing to do,” Chief Executive Officer Chris Griffith said in an interview. “Already in one year we have made up probably what people would have paid for the asset, so I think it absolutely makes sense to stay in the asset.”

Gold miners have had a very difficult time over the last decade. Capital has been hard to come by because they were tarred with the “capital destroyer” brush and, with falling commodity prices, investors fled the sector. The fact that South Deep can generate more revenue in a year than the company could have sold the mine for at the bottom of the cycle is a testament to just how low valuations were.

Gold has firmed in the opening weeks of this year as investors sought a haven from elevated inflation and the geopolitical crisis in Europe. The precious metal’s climb has been aided by renewed inflows into bullion-backed exchange-traded funds, which are on track for a second monthly gain.

That support comes even as traders up their bets on a more aggressive approach from the Federal Reserve, pushing up inflation-adjusted Treasury yields and putting pressure on gold. The latest Fed minutes, due later Wednesday, may influence views on its policy path.

“We believe investors have attached a greater emphasis to hedging geopolitics,” strategists at UBS Group AG including Wayne Gordon wrote in a note. “A break in the negative correlation between gold and U.S. real rates never really endures, and this time is no different.” 

The UBS strategists still expect gold to hit $1,650 an ounce by the end of this year.

The primary argument being made by the UBS team is that negative real rates are tightening so the logical support for gold is less compelling. They argue that in a positive real rate environment there is no way gold can hold the current higher levels.

There are a couple of issues with relying only on a real rates argument. The first is that real rates were positive and averaged about 200 basis points between 2003 and 2009. Then after the credit crisis real rates trended lower to deeply negative rates until early 2013. Gold rallied meaningfully during positive real rates and peaked even though real rates were still contracting after 2011.

Gold surged, heading for its best week in more than three months as concerns over red-hot inflation boosted demand for the metal as a store of value.

A surprise jump in U.S. inflation sparked rate-hike speculation that the Federal Reserve may act more aggressively to contain rising prices. Gold extended gains Friday as U.S. stocks fell to session lows and Treasuries rose after the U.K. told its citizens in Ukraine to leave the country, adding to worries over long-simmering tensions with Russia. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied that it plans to attack Ukraine.

Bullion’s appeal as an inflation hedge is outweighing worries that rising interest rates will erode demand for the metal, which doesn’t offer a yield.

Gold’s ability to defy gravity amid rising U.S. yields is driven by its credentials as “an inflation hedge as well as a defensive asset during a period of elevated stock and bond market volatility as the market adjusts to a rising interest rate environment,” said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S. 

Hansen sees inflation to remain elevated with rising input costs, wages and rentals being a few components that may not be lowered by rising interest rates.  This helps gold as a hedge against the view that central banks will be successful in bringing down inflation, according to him.

Spot gold gained 1.7% to $1,858.41 an ounce by 1:57 p.m. in New York, the highest intraday level since Nov. 19.  Prices are up 2.8% this week, heading for the best week since May 7. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index fell 0.1%. Silver and palladium also rose, while platinum was little changed.

Gold is unloved and if recent subscriber emails are any guide, even the faithful have given up hope. That’s usually an indication that leverage has been squeezed out of the market. When that kind of action occurs and prices don’t give up their gains, it suggests a willingness by other investors to buy dips and keep on accumulating regardless of volatility.

Jeff Currie, the closely-followed head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., says he’s never seen commodity markets pricing in the shortages they are right now.

“I’ve been doing this 30 years and I’ve never seen markets like this,” Currie said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “This is a molecule crisis. We’re out of everything, I don’t care if it’s oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminum, you name it we’re out of it.”

Futures curves in several markets are trading in super-backwardation -- a structure that indicates traders are paying bumper premiums for immediate supply. The downward sloping shape in prices is generally taken to mean commodities are severely undersupplied.

This is the time in the cycle where there is a vociferous argument between whether the strength in commodity prices is cyclical or secular in nature. If it is cyclical then we are in a repeat of the post global financial crisis episode where commodity prices surged to new highs and subsequently gave up most of the advance. On the hand, if this is the beginning of a new secular theme, we can expect the breakouts to hold and prices to multiply several times over the next decade.

Russia already sends gas to China via its Power of Siberia pipeline, which began pumping supplies in 2019, and by shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG). It exported 16.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to China in 2021.

The Power of Siberia network is not connected to pipelines that send gas to Europe, which has faced surging gas prices due to tight supplies, one of several points of tension with Moscow.

Under plans previously drawn up, Russia aimed to supply China with 38 bcm of gas by pipeline by 2025.

The new deal, which coincided with a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Beijing Winter Olympics, would add a further 10 bcm, increasing Russian pipeline sales under long-term contracts to China.

Exporting gas is not Russia’s biggest money spinner but it creates reliance that is priceless from a geopolitical perspective. More than doubling gas exports to China might be described as an alliance of autocrats but the reality is China needs energy. That’s not an equal partnership even if the long-term pricing structure is competitive. Russia is building a network of dependency right across the Eurasian continent that will give it a lot of leeway to push for concessions in other areas.

Seroka said he agrees with the chief executive of a major container line, A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S’s Soren Skou, who told Bloomberg TV in a separate interview earlier that ocean shipping should start to normalize in the second half of the year. Maersk, which handles almost one-fifth of the world’s container traffic, said it sees a 2%-4% expansion in the market this year, with a strong first half followed by an uncertain outlook after that. 

Supply chain disruptions forced companies to front load orders in the hope they could get enough inventory in to avoid future bottlenecks. That put upward pressure on both shipping rates and prices to consumers.

Eoin. I've been appreciating your daily commentary and your review of the charts. You've several times mentioned that gold stocks are "cheap," and I don't disagree. Within the gold ecosystem, however, which do you think have the most promise, i.e., the biggest bargains?

Thank you for your kind words and this question which may be of interest to subscribers. The NYSE Arca Gold BUGS Index / gold ratio has been ranging below 0.2 since 2013. It is currently mid-range but the current reading is still below the nadir posted in 2000. Relative to the price of gold, miners are cheap.

A bad back currently prevents me golfing, walking the dog, or driving the car and, in my opinion justifiably, I am feeling a grumpy.

So here are a few gripes for you:

First gold:
For several years you taught us that the gold price follows an approximate 35-year cycle between highs, although the gold price could outpace stock indexes for short periods in between those highs. We’ve not heard too much about the 35-year cycle for a while, the message now being that it is not unusual for gold to trade in a boring range for up to 18 months or so before breaking out conclusively up or down. You believe it will break to the upside taking out previous highs (which runs contrary to your 35-year cycle theory). I hold a fair chunk of gold and silver miners in ETFs but regard the holding as a hedge rather than representing a belief that gold will imminently break to the upside. It might and it would be nice if it did but I doubt it. As David said, investment options are similar to a beauty parade and for the foreseeable future, many options are likely to look superior to gold.

Second India v China:
You are very hard on China and its political system. Having lived most of my life in Asia I take a less severe view. Like most observers I was disappointed to see that XI, the reformer, had no intention of political reform but on reflection, I think he’s probably right to opt for political stability at a time when China is still struggling to bring modernity to all its people and regions; when lightening-speed technological change is taking place across the globe and when it finds itself in an inevitable struggle to assert what it regards as its rightful influence on global institutions and practices. On a smaller scale in Singapore Lee Kuan Yew did much the same thing and while there is now a little more political tolerance in Singapore than there was, the Government – and most of its people – believe that full-throated democracy would lead to economic and societal break-down. That would be Xi’s worst nightmare.

My grouse is not so much with your view on China but with your uncritical view of India. I agree with you that India should do well given its demographic advantage and talents of its people. However, I think the Modi government is quite repugnant in its covert – and not so covert – support of extremist Hindu nationalism represented by terrorisation of the Muslim and Christian communities, and by its appalling failure to do much about the abuse of women, also fuelled by Hindu extremists. In the medium term, I fear this, together with over-dependence on coal, will limit India’s investment appeal and therefore its economic potential.

To declare my investment positions, I have reduced my exposure to India and wait for an opportunity to reinvest in China. My favourite Asian market currently is Vietnam.

Third, the purpose of your ‘service’:
Under David’s direction, Fuller Money provided objective macro oversights together with some trading suggestions/recommendations and some investment suggestions/recommendations. He often put his money where his mouth was and invested in his recommendations. Towards the end of his career, he stopped publishing his investment portfolio which I regarded as a pity. Under your direction, Fuller-Treacy Money continues to provide objective (if sometimes convoluted and long-winded) macro oversights, but I find it difficult to work out whether beyond that you are offering trading hints or investment hints. I use the word ‘hints’ rather than ‘suggestions’ because in this aspect you are far more non-committal on specifics than was David. The details you provide of your own investment activities suggest that you are a trader with long(ish) term investments in gold bullion, gold miners and Rolls Royce. I made several profitable purchases based on David’s recommendations but so far have identified none under your watch.

Fourth Daily Audio and Video:
From emails you have referred to from other subscribers, I am confident that I am not alone in being irritated by several of your constant refrains. Three which particularly annoy me are ‘The big question is ….’ (to which we never get an answer); ‘[Gold (for example) has a lot of work to do’ (which is a nonsense, better to identify factors which might influence buying/selling decisions) and; ‘I can’t talk and chew gum at the same time’ (which sounds quite catchy heard for the first time, but grates increasingly after many repetitions).

So, getting that off my chest makes me feel slightly less out of sorts. I shall be renewing my subscription in March. It’s been part of my routine for too long.

Thank you for this detailed email, your long-term support and I hope you back feels better soon. If it is muscular, rather than a herniation, I strongly recommend Yunnan Baiyao. I’ve pulled muscles in my lower back on several occasions either playing tennis or lifting. If it is taken quickly after injury, it provides a powerful, quick solution with no side effects I have experienced. 

I began questioning the wisdom of relying on the Dow/Gold ratio during the early stages of the pandemic. Here is a link to Comment of the Day on April 24th 2020. It includes a large number of long-term ratios and concluded that the Dow Jones Industrials Average is no longer the best way to look at the long-term ratio, confirmed concentration of attention in the growth sector, predicted the recovery in oil prices, higher wages, and the return of inflation.

In 2020 I began a series of reviews of longer-term themes which will be updated going forward on the first Friday of every month. These reviews can be found via the search bar using the term “Secular Themes Review”.

The biggest trend in the world isn’t bitcoin or the FANGMAN stocks. It’s bonds. Yields peaked in 1980 and the cost of borrowing has done nothing but decline since.

That’s enabled the steady rise of leverage, debt accumulation, asset price appreciation, speculation in all manner of public and private assets and every other bull market too.

The exact mix of where the debts have accumulated most is different in each country. For the USA, fiscal excess and unfunded liabilities are the biggest debt issue. The large number of companies surviving with no profits is the second biggest debt issue.

In Australia, Canada and the UK, consumer debt ratios, household debt and property debt are the pain points. The Reserve Bank of Australia’s reluctance to raise rates, despite inflation, is a symptom of the economy’s reliance on property prices.

For China, the accumulation of debt in the property sector has been epic. The sector represents 30% of GDP. At least in Japan, the massive quantity of debt is held domestically but it is a significant hurdle to raising rates.

European Central Bank policy makers can envisage recalibrating their outlined policy path in March, according to officials familiar with their thinking.

The Governing Council agreed on Thursday that it’s sensible not to exclude the possibility of an interest-rate hike this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because their discussions are private. 

An end of bond-buying under the ECB’s regular program, the APP, is possible as early as the third quarter, the officials said. No decisions have been taken. 

An ECB spokesman declined to comment. ECB President Christine Lagarde refused to repeat at her press conference that a rate increase was very unlikely this year, highlighting more persistent-than-expected inflation pressures in the 19-nation bloc. Investors brought forward bets on a liftoff while she spoke.

This graphic from the Nordea highlights the fact that European inflation is all about energy. Raising interest rates doesn’t do much more to curtail demand than high prices are doing already so the ECB is understandably reluctant to rush into action.

That would suggest that whoever is buying is able to buy in scale, leave little footprint in the market and then take delivery and store the metal in secure, invisible vaults. And that points strongly toward a sovereign buyer.

Central banks normally declare to the IMF the amounts of metal they have on their books. But there are precedents where this has been done with some delay. Between 2009 and 2015, China reported no change in holdings, only to reveal that it had bought 53 million ounces of metal over the period.

Gold habitually ranges for long enough to try the patience of even the most ardent bulls. When it breaks out, it usually takes most traders by surprise. That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned from trading the metal for nearly twenty years.

Euro-area inflation unexpectedly accelerated to a record, overshooting expectations by the most in at least two decades and heaping pressure on the European Central Bank to pare back pandemic stimulus more quickly, like its counterparts in the U.S. and the U.K.

Consumer prices jumped 5.1% from a year ago in January, up from 5% in December. The median estimate in a Bloomberg poll of 44 economists saw a reading of only 4.4% and none predicted inflation gaining pace.

The euro climbed 0.3% against the dollar to $1.1305 while German bonds pared gains to leave the 10-year yield one basis point lower at 0.03%.

While slowing in Germany and France, the euro zone’s two biggest economies, the spike in energy costs pulled price growth higher across the 19-member currency bloc as a whole. It was more than a percentage point higher than analysts predicted in Italy, where it accelerated to 5.3%.

Stripping out energy and other volatile components like food, core inflation was 2.3%, down from last month’s 2.6% reading.

Energy prices are a multiple of where they were a year ago. That’s hitting everyone’s wallet. The issue is particularly worrisome in Europe where natural gas inventories are extremely low and consumption taxes are high. An even bigger crisis has been avoided only by virtue of winter weather being relatively warm of late.

Your rather surprisingly positive reportage from Saudi Arabia awakened my interest in their stock market.  I found to my surprise that it is nearly perfectly correlated with a broad commodities index. This is not because it is just the oil price, as that takes up only a small part of the commodities index, and oil companies take up only a small part of the Saudi stock market.  The two markets I am comparing are IKSA and COMF, both in London.  Do you have any ideas about why this correlation is so tight?

It would be nice if you would revisit the market from time to time and give us your opinions on it.

Thank you for this email which highlights an important aspect of the Saudi market. The SASE Index is predominately weighted by banks. This being Saudi Arabia they are run on Islamic principles so loans are less leveraged relative to deposits than one might see elsewhere. Additionally, companies are not allowed to list until they have posted profits for three consecutive years.

The nickel market is showing more signs of stress. Stockpiles held by the London Metal Exchange extended their decline on Tuesday, with the last increase coming in October. Buyers are paying a massive premium for immediately deliverable futures.

The key cash three-month spread, which briefly eased on news of additional shipments from Tsingshan Holdings Group Co., notched new highs on Monday. Contracts for immediate delivery are trading at a $508-a-ton premium to those in three months, the highest such premium since a historic squeeze in 2007.

While the squeeze last month was focused on near-dated contracts, in recent days it has spread through the curve. That shows the market is now pricing in tighter nickel supplies for longer, amid strong demand from stainless steel producers and battery manufacturers.

Demand for batteries is likely to ramp higher over the coming years as more automotive manufacturers release new models. What kind of batteries will go into those cars is less discussed. Nickel is primarily used as a range extender. The downside is it is much more expensive and chemically volatile. Tesla is switching to lithium iron phosphate batteries for all its mid-range vehicles. That is going to cut into demand for nickel in the medium-term.

Brazil analysts raised their 2022 inflation expectations further above target for the third week in a row as the central bank prepares to lift its interest rate into double digits at Wednesday’s policy meeting.
Inflation will hit 5.38% in December, above the prior estimate of 5.15%, according to a weekly central bank survey published on Monday. Analysts also lifted their 2023 year-end consumer price forecast to 3.50% from 3.40%. 

Policy makers led by Roberto Campos Neto are expected to deliver their third consecutive 150-basis point rate hike this week, lifting the benchmark Selic to 10.75%. Inflation slowed less than expected in mid-January, as factors including global supply-chain disruptions pressured prices of transportation and
durable goods. Analysts see borrowing costs at 11.75% in December. 

The central bank risks missing this year’s inflation target of 3.5%, which has a tolerance of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

Brazil has some of the highest short-term interest rates in the world and they are about to get even higher. Emerging markets do not have the luxury of time to wait and see what happens. They have much more recent history of inflationary problems and have tended to act much quicker to curtail growth opportunities to bring inflation under control. That’s exactly what Brazil is doing with its aggressive hikes.

Thanks for the great service pulling the noise out of market trends for us. We especially enjoy what my wife affectionately calls the “Big Picture Long-Winded” Friday recordings. Regarding the possible rotation into the renewable/green economy do you have any ideas on Industries/companies that could benefit from the build out? Or would the safer play be directly in the commodities needed for the grid, vehicles, batteries, and such? Hoping to get to another Chart Seminar before too long.

Thank you for your kind words. A former delegate at The Chart Seminar once described my sense of humour as “impish” and I can’t argue with that. Your better half’s turn of phrase certainly tickled me. The Friday broadcasts are often a delicate balance between trying to be pithy and attempting to cover the relevant arguments. I’m looking at a late May/early June date for a London seminar and I hope to see you there.

The question of the future of the zero carbon/green revolution/energy transition is a big one. On one hand we have high minded projections of a utopian future where the air is pristine and no economy is dependent on carbon emissions for growth. Promises of hundreds of trillions being spent to achieve that goal were a major feature of international conferences in 2021.

“The Fed’s latest update is net negative for risk assets, as it seems to show that the Fed has a lower strike put than we thought - in other words Powell would be comfortable to allow further market weakness and volatility without intervening,” said Altaf Kassam, EMEA head of investment strategy and research at State Street Global Advisors.

“Investors should continue to avoid developed markets government bonds as there is only downside there. We are rotating into defensive equities, long-dated U.S. Treasuries, commodities and VIX futures - Volatility will be here for a while.”

The Fed is talking about raising rates faster than any other developed market central bank. That represents a strong tailwind for the Dollar Index and it broke upwards to new recovery highs today. This has been a consistent rebound from the lower side of the range and nothing has yet happened to question potential for a run back towards the psychological 100 level.

Viterra is already the world’s largest wheat trader, thanks to its investments in major exporting regions including Canada, Australia, Argentina, and the former Soviet Union. If Gavilon in the U.S. is added to that impressive portfolio, it will be the kind of concentration — and power — that governments worry about. Indeed, Beijing may be even more concerned about the deal than Washington. China, which is spending billions of dollars to build its own state-owned agricultural trading house, is unlikely to welcome further consolidation in an industry it relies on to feed more than one billion people.

Regulatory concerns aside, the deal is a steal. Glencore, founded by the late U.S. fugitive Marc Rich in the 1970s, built its agribusiness through acquisitions. In 2012, it beat out ADM and purchased Canadian grain trader Viterra Inc. for 6.1 billion Canadian Dollars ($4.8 billion). Today, Glencore controls just under 50% of the enlarged Viterra business, with 49% owned by two Canadian pension funds and a residual percentage controlled by the staff.

Most investment banks closed their commodity trading desks during the 2011-2016 bear market. They sold their ships and warehouses too so getting back to dominant positions is not going to be easy or cheap. That handed control of market making to private trading houses which now control the market regardless of whether Glencore’s bit for Gavilon is successful.

The end of an easy-money era should normally spell bad news for gold. But right now, fund managers are keeping their holdings.

At a time when equities and Bitcoin -- often touted as digital gold -- are sinking as loose monetary policy draws to a close, bullion exchange-traded fund holdings are proving resilient. Despite expectations for multiple U.S. interest-rate hikes this year, bets for real rates to stay negative and demand for an inflation hedge are supporting the appeal of the time-honored haven.

Christoph Schmidt, who heads DWS Group’s 20 billion euros ($22.6 billion) Multi Asset Total Return team, is among those in no rush to sell and who has helped keep prices from falling.

“I would not expect our gold position to change in the foreseeable future,” said Frankfurt-based Schmidt, who has 8% of his funds in gold. “We don’t see a dramatic change in the interest-rate environment.”

Rumours of the death of easy money are at best exaggerated. It’s been my view for months that a succession of interest rate hikes is very unlikely. My base case is one and at most two before the end of the year. Anything else would cause havoc in the financial markets and the Fed is at pains to avoid that outcome because of the effect it would have on confidence in the economic recovery.

Billionaire investor Mike Novogratz has said cryptocurrencies will struggle to pull out of their sell-off if stocks keep falling, as he urged investors not to buy the dip.

Prices for bitcoin, ether and other digital currencies have fallen sharply across the board as they track Wall Street's rout in tech stocks, driven by pressure from rising bond yields.

"Crypto will have a hard time rallying until stocks find a base," Novogratz, CEO of investment company Galaxy Digital, tweeted late Thursday.

Novogratz pointed to the sharp fall in the Russell index, which is down almost 10% year to date, saying there are 1.2 trillion bad equity longs above the market.

"This is now a bear market," he said, adding: "Sell rallies.  Don't buy dips."

Doubts about whether bitcoin is a risk asset or a safe haven have been dispelled over night as bitcoin followed the stock market to new lows. That’s an important distinction because the primary comparison between bitcoin and gold over the last couple of years is they are both long-term stores of value. Recent action suggests that belief is wrong.

There are times in the market when a comparison between two assets classes serves to highlight a disparity that has become so wide that it inspires a sense of wonder, confusion and questioning

In December 2020 there was a news headline to the effect that Tesla’s market cap was greater than that of the next 9 largest car companies combined. There are two ways of thinking about that statistic. The first is enthusiasm for Tesla shares was running at fever pitch. The second was that the other auto companies were cheap by comparison.

The Hang Seng Tech Index jumped 4.5%, with Meituan and Tencent Holdings among those leading gains. The gauge has started 2022 with an advance after losing about a third of its value last year amid Beijing’s clampdown on tech companies. 

The rally followed clarification from China’s internet regulator late Wednesday that it’s not asking to approve all investments or fundraising by big tech companies, denying an earlier media report.  

A Bloomberg Intelligence gauge of Chinese real estate developers advanced 3.6%, following reports that the government may ease access to some funds. The sector’s gains came even as Thursday’s cut in the five-year loan prime rate left some market watchers disappointed.    

Shares of Country Garden Services Holdings Co. and Sunac China Holdings Ltd. surged more than 10% each. The unwinding of some short positions also likely aided the rally in property stocks, traders said.  

Agile Group, Shimao Group and Guangzhou R&F have about 20% of their free-float shares sold short, among the highest in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index, according to data from IHS Markit. 

Chinese New Year is on February 1st and will be followed by a week-long holiday for mainland markets. At the same time the winter Olympics begins on the 4th which will focus the sporting media’s attention on Beijing. The central bank is making sure its messaging is clear ahead of the shutdown. That’s also aimed at instilling some confidence in investors that the squeeze on private property developers will be limited to that sector.

Barrick Gold Corp. said Wednesday that it has met its production targets for 2021.

The Canadian mining giant said preliminary gold production for the full year was of 4.44 million troy ounces, within its target range of 4.4 million to 4.7 million.

Barrick said the Africa and Middle East, Latin America and Asia Pacific regions performed particularly well, at the upper end of their regional gold guidance ranges.

Preliminary copper production reached 415 million pounds for the year, toward the lower end of Barrick's target range of between 410 million and 460 million pounds.

In the fourth quarter, the company said it sold about 1.23 million ounces of gold and 113 million pounds of copper, with average market prices reaching $1,795 an ounce of gold and $4.40 a pound of copper.

Barrick is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter and full-year results on Feb. 16.

Investors are not expressing a great deal of faith in gold miners. Most related stocks have experienced significant corrections over the last year, despite the fact gold prices are only 11.5 % below the all-time peak. At current prices most miners are enjoying close to record margins and that is despite the relative strength of oil. It would appear to be only a matter of time before investors reassess the sector’s prospects.

Commodities giant Glencore Plc hit the highest in almost a decade, driven by rallies in everything from metals to coal and optimism for a years-long supercycle.

The world’s biggest commodity trader surpassed its 2018 intraday peak on Tuesday, valuing the Swiss company at about $74 billion. Like its mining rivals, Glencore has benefited from massive global stimulus measures that have stoked demand for raw materials, and has also been a big winner from an energy crunch that sent coal prices to a record high. 

A Bloomberg gauge of spot commodities has doubled since early in the pandemic -- reaching an all-time high in October -- as government measures to bolster economies underpinned demand while supply curbs further tightened metals markets. At the same time, a green revolution is boosting long-term prospects for metals including cobalt and nickel for products like batteries.

Glencore is expected to deliver record profits and a bumper dividend when it reports earnings in February. And as the boom draws more investors into commodities, many analysts forecast prices to remain high. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said that a commodities supercycle has the potential to last for a decade.

The London Metals Index is testing the 2007 and 2011 highs. Those were bumper years for mining profits so this year is likely to be no different. The challenge for investors is those peaks also represented major climaxes ahead of a rapid tightening of monetary conditions and slowing global growth. The question is whether this time is different?

Thanks for your insightful reports from the meeting in Saudi Arabia. Amazing to have taken part in presentations by so many important CEOs.

I was particularly interested in your story of the mining companies salivating at the thought of all the coming increased demand for copper.  Yet a number of reports I have seen recently predict that the copper price will actually fall in 2022.  For example:

https://www.indexbox.io/blog/copper-prices-to-slump-in-2022-on-rising-supply/
https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/metals/120721-feature-copper-market-to-be-well-supplied-in-2022

How can I reconcile these views in your opinion?

Thanks for keeping the videos going despite time changes and jetlag. It is particularly impressive that you manage to keep the audio completely intelligible, even if one isn't watching the video at the same time.  That makes it possible to listen to it while for instance having breakfast, which is my habit.

Thank you for your kind email and this topical question. I’ve seen these same kinds of reports anticipating a surplus this year and next. Ultimately, it is going to be a question about how many of the policies committed to at COP26 and other forums will in fact be acted upon.

Many people have remarked on the wonders of compounding. For example, Albert Einstein reportedly called compound interest “the eighth wonder of the world.” If $1 could be invested today at the historic compound return of 10.5% per year, it would grow to $147 in 50 years. One might argue that economic growth will be slower in the years ahead than it was in the past, or that bargain stocks were easier to find in previous periods than they are today. Nevertheless, even if it compounds at just 7%, $1 invested today will grow to over $29 in 50 years. Thus, someone entering adulthood today is practically guaranteed to be well fixed by the time they retire if they merely start investing promptly and avoid tampering with the process by trading.

I like the way Bill Miller, one of the great investors of our time, put it in his 3Q 2021 Market Letter:

In the post-war period the US stock market has gone up in around 70% of the years . . . Odds much less favorable than that have made casino owners very rich, yet most investors try to guess the 30% of the time stocks decline, or even worse spend time trying to surf, to no avail, the quarterly up and down waves in the market. Most of the returns in stocks are concentrated in sharp bursts beginning in periods of great pessimism or fear, as we saw most recently in the 2020 pandemic decline. We believe time, not timing, is the key to building wealth in the stock market. (October 18, 2021. Emphasis added)

What are the “sharp bursts” Miller talks about? On April 11, 2019, The Motley Fool cited data from JP Morgan Asset Management’s 2019 Retirement Guide showing that in the 20-year period between 1999 and 2018, the annual return on the S&P 500 was 5.6%, but your return would only have been 2.0% if you had sat out the 10 best days (or roughly 0.4% of the trading days), and you wouldn’t have made any money at all if you had missed the 20 best days. In the past, returns have often been similarly concentrated in a small number of days. Nevertheless, overactive investors continue to jump in and out of the market, incurring transactions costs and capital gains taxes and running the risk of missing those “sharp bursts.”

As mentioned earlier, investors often engage in selling because they believe a decline is imminent and they have the ability to avoid it. The truth, however, is that buying or holding – even at elevated prices – and experiencing a decline is in itself far from fatal. Usually, every market high is followed by a higher one and, after all, only the long-term return matters. Reducing market exposure through ill-conceived selling – and thus failing to participate fully in the markets’ positive long-term trend – is a cardinal sin in investing. That’s even more true of selling without reason things that have fallen, turning negative fluctuations into permanent losses and missing out on the miracle of long-term compounding.

The arguments against selling become progressively more compelling the longer prices move up and to the right. It would have been a mistake to sell everything in January 2020 when news of the coronavirus was breaking unless you were equally committed to buying it all back at the first sign of bottoming in March. That visceral experience has acted as a learning experience for many investors who will have resolved never to sell. That is most particularly evident in the crypto markets where faith in the bullish hypothesis has been rewarded time and again.

Robert Friedland delivered a speech at the Future Metals Forum today which caused something of a stir. The graphics detailing copper demand growth in an electrification and simple growth scenario were impressive and not least because his conclusion is the mining industry is in no position to deliver the quantity of supply required to reach anything approaching decarbonisation goals.

I lost a subscriber today. In our business losing a subscriber is not unusual. Every loss is mourned while gaining a subscriber is always celebrated. Hopefully the latter outweighs the former and, more often than not, it does. Above all we have always prized the dedication of the people who stick with us through thick and thin. For that I simply wish to say thank you.

We have an enormous wealth of experience within the Fuller Treacy Money Subscriber collective. If any of our seasoned investors would like to introduce some younger potential subscribers we would be happy to offer them free trials.

Most successful newsletters have calculated how long a subscriber remains a customer. Then they attempt to maximise revenue from that person by upselling into sequentially more expensive products; while they have the person’s attention. Ultimately, they seek to sell a lifetime subscription. We’ve never done that for better or worse. You get everything in one product: video, audio, commentary, my personal trading details for one price.

I had an email today from a soon to be former subscriber expressing frustration at the fact I do not provide enough analysis and provide too much commentary. He also expressed frustration at the sideways trend in gold. I said in yesterday’s copy that the renewed bull trend in gold will be confirmed by a move above $1850. Until then we are still in a range. I am positioned to benefit from a breakout, and based on my original entry points, my breakeven is $1800. Nothing I say or do will cause a breakout to occur sooner than the market is ready to support it.  

Nickel rallied to the highest in more than seven years as surging sales of electric vehicles leave carmakers racing to lock in supplies of the critical battery metal. 

Prices of the metal jumped as much as 3.4% to $21,500 a ton, the highest since May 2014, as Tesla Inc. moved to secure future supplies from Talon Metals Corp. That added fresh impetus to a rally built on surging sales of electric vehicles, which has also pushed other battery metals including lithium and cobalt sharply higher. 

In other major investments in the battery sector, chemicals maker LG Chem also said Tuesday it will spend 500 billion won ($420 million) by 2025 to build a battery materials plant, while BHP Group on Monday said it will pay $100 million to take a stake in an early-stage nickel project in Tanzania.  

While the race to secure future supplies is heating up, there are also growing signs of limited spot availability on the London Metal Exchange. Inventories tracked by the bourse fell for a 50th consecutive day on Tuesday, in the longest run of declines since 2000. 

“We have so many stories all pointing in the same direction,” Michael Widmer, head of metals research at Bank of America, said by phone from London. “People do realize that there is potentially a tightness in supply going on, and that is taking prices ultimately higher.”

Nickel prices traded 2.8% higher at 12 p.m. local time on the London Metal Exchange, reaching $21,375 a ton. Copper, aluminum and tin all gained.

 

Nickel contributes to battery energy density but also to combustibility. Tesla may be securing additional nickel supplies and BHP is investing in new production in Tanzania but Tesla is also now selling lithium/iron/phosphate batteries in the USA which are less energy dense but do not need nickel or cobalt.

Why such angst? There’s a lot in the minutes, with much useful information for students of the economy and monetary policy. You can find the full version here. For those less interested in such studies, the passage of three sentences that accounted for more or less all of the market reaction read as follows:

it may become warranted to increase the federal funds rate sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated. Some participants also noted that it could be appropriate to begin to reduce the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet relatively soon after beginning to raise the federal funds rate. Some participants judged that a less accommodative future stance of policy would likely be warranted and that the Committee should convey a strong commitment to address elevated inflation pressures.

This commits the central bank to nothing, but the notion that there were hawks on the committee who thought that the Fed should reduce the size of its balance sheet (in other words, start to sell off its huge bond holdings in a move that, all else being equal, should raise yields) came as an unpleasant surprise. Those words are there for a reason. The Fed thought it a good idea to plant a reminder of hawkish intent just as markets were ramping up again after the New Year break, and it seems to have worked.

The Fed Minutes were the catalyst for the sell-off in bonds yesterday which contributed to the weakness in the growth sector. I suspect talk of being more aggressive in quantitative tightening than the 2018/19 period was the primary reason investors took fright.

Kazakhstan’s top uranium miner, Kazatomprom, said supplies of the radioactive metal used for nuclear fuel haven’t been disrupted by the unrest and work at all company units has continued. Kazakhstan produces more than 40% of the world’s uranium; prices for the metal jumped.

“We are fulfilling all our obligations easily, there are no problems with uranium shipments and we will meet all delivery deadlines,” Kazatomprom Chief Commercial Officer Askar Batyrbayev said in a phone interview.

Russian Foreign Ministry Says Unrest ‘Inspired From Outside’ (1:51 p.m.)
The unrest in Kazakhstan is “an attempt inspired from outside to violently undermine the security and integrity of the state with the use of organized and trained armed units,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday in a statement.

The ministry didn’t offer further details on who was meant by outside forces. A senior Russian legislator, Konstantin Kosachyov, blamed terrorist groups from Afghanistan and the Middle East, without providing evidence.

The Arab Spring began as a series of popular protests in Tunisia, in response to the rising cost of bread. Eventually, the popular movement toppled Egypt’s government and created strife everywhere in the region. It appears likely Russia and its satellites have learned the lesson. Allowing protest movements’, a toehold can have a disastrous impact on the ability of a regime to retain control. China’s efforts to control all public discourse are also informed by the results of the Arab Spring.

6.The price of gold rallies by 20% to a new record high. Despite strong growth in the US, investors seek the perceived safety and inflation hedge of gold amidst rising prices and volatility. Gold reclaims its title as a haven for newly minted billionaires, even as cryptocurrencies continue to gain market share.

7.While the major oil-producing countries conclude that high oil prices are speeding up the implementation of alternative energy programs and allowing US shale producers to become profitable again, these countries can’t increase production enough to meet demand. The price of West Texas crude confounds forward curves and analyst forecasts when it rises above $100 per barrel.

One of the big lessons from The Chart Seminar is “ranges are explosions waiting to happen”. The longer a range persists for the lower expectations for future potential become. Even so the range stores up potential for a breakout like a spring under compression. A breakout unleashes waves of new buying and price continue to rise until a new balance is found with sellers.

One key factor has been a lack of interest from financial investors, who are crucial to driving gold’s rallies. Holdings in exchange-traded funds have dropped almost 9% through the year, while hedge funds trading Comex futures have kept their bullion bets muted.
 
While the prospect of monetary tightening hurt gold’s appeal, prices were supported by strong demand from Asian jewelry consumers and central bank buying.

The opposing drivers have left bullion hovering almost magnetically around the $1,800-an-ounce mark. While that’s a historically high price, it will be disappointing to those who enjoyed the surge to a record in 2020.

However, the equilibrium between dip buyers and sellers may not hold for long. More gains in the dollar could spell misery. On the other hand, signs of persistent, runaway inflation could finally provide the spark needed for a sustainable gold rally.
 
BlackRock Inc.’s Evy Hambro said earlier this month that gold could climb in 2022, driven by a combination of real interest rates, U.S. dollar performance and demand for haven assets. However, analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. see gold coming under more pressure as the global economic recovery continues, forecasting an average price of $1,520 an ounce in the fourth quarter.
 
On the last day of 2021, gold edged up 0.3% to $1,820 an ounce by 1:04 p.m. in London. Silver also gained, while platinum and palladium declined. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index weakened.

In a market accustomed to instant gratification, gold has been conspicuously quiet. 2021 delivered meme stocks with no earnings or prospects, yet they soared to unimaginable levels. We’ve also seen grainy jpegs achieve prices comparable to those of the great masters. It was also a year when the FANGMANT shares persisted in gaining market share which supported the dominance of Wall Street in currency adjusted terms.

The move is the latest step by Beijing to consolidate an industry often buffeted by wild price swings that cause headaches for end users. The merger will reduce competitive pressure in the industry by shrinking the number of Chinese rare earths producers from six to four.

The Chinese government has used the same strategy in other industries, including rail transport and shipping lines, to prevent rival groups from undercutting each other when bidding for lucrative overseas contracts.

“We can’t let market force determine how much rare earths should cost given their strategic importance,” said one person close to Ganzhou Rare Earth who asked not to be identified. “We need to keep prices stable so end users could control costs and move up the value chain.”

The Chinese government also wants to strengthen the industry as the US and other large importers of rare earths mined or refined in China seek to develop alternative supply sources, such as large mines in California and Australia.

Daan de Jonge of consultants CRU Group said the merger would see the pricing power of key rare earths, such as dysprosium and terbium, consolidated in the hands of one “super group”.
“Given that the majority of rare earths investment outside of China has centred on light rare earths, it is likely that prices and access for the historically volatile heavy rare earths will be de facto controlled by this group until new capacity can come online, which may take several years,” he said.

Moving up the value chain in manufacturing is a national priority for China. Almost every industry where the country wishes to play a leading role, whether renewable infrastructure, electronics or weapons requires rare earth metals. The result is China is consuming more of its supply of these refined products than ever before which necessarily means there is less to export.

You have mentioned Afritin Mining as a tin miner to watch. Michael Rawlinson is new board member and believes it could become a billion $ company.

AfriTin NED - Michael Rawlinson Introduction - YouTube

Michael Rawlinson's CV in mining is impressive

Michael Rawlinson has over 25 years experience in mining finance as research analyst, corporate financier, investor and non executive Director. He as the Global Co-Head of Mining and Metals at Barclays investment bank between 2013 and 2017 having joined from the boutique investment bank, Liberum Capital, a business he helped found in 2007. Prior to that he was a Partner at Cazenove and MD at JP Morgan Cazenove.

He is currently Chairman of Balkan mining development company Adriatic Metals plc, a Senior Independent Non-Executive Director at precious metals producer Hochschild Mining and Independent Non-Executive Director at African mining services provider Capital Limited.

I am no expert but this looks like a large flag forming since April and we have now reached the apex of the triangle on the FM weekly chart.

Thank you for this information which may be of interest to the Collective. Indonesia is the primary producer of tin and they are considering a ban on exports of concentrate. The market was already in a chronic deficit and that announcement two weeks ago raised fears tin would be in even shorter supply. The inability of primary producers to increase output and the ongoing difficulties countries like Myanmar and Indonesia are having with COVID have contributed to the squeeze. 

A rout in some of the world’s biggest technology companies dragged down the broader equity market, outweighing gains in companies that stand to benefit the most from an economic rebound.

The S&P 500 fell after earlier climbing on bets that central banks can move toward tighter policies to fight inflation without derailing the economy. The Nasdaq 100 tumbled, led by losses in giants like Apple Inc. and Tesla Inc. Commodity, financial and industrial shares rose. European equities jumped as the region’s policy makers unveiled a gradual pullback of pandemic stimulus, while the pound gained as the Bank of England unexpectedly raised rates. Bitcoin slumped.

Central banks are weighing measures to fight price pressures while balancing risks to growth amid coronavirus challenges. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde unveiled forecasts showing a strong economic rebound along with an outlook for faster inflation. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it will accelerate the pace at which it tapers bond purchases, and projected rate hikes through 2024.

This is a very whippy environment for trading. No sooner do we see a rebound than most of its is given up. This is attributable to the divergence between central bank pronouncements about their expected rate hikes and what the market believes is possible. Short-dated bond yields contracted today to reflect the expectation that if the Fed were in fact to raise rates three times, there will be economic consequences.

It’s the second Peruvian mine to suspend production this week after Nexa Resources SA halted Cerro Lindo, although Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez said Wednesday that police had dispersed protesters at that zinc operation. 

And

A prolonged shutdown at a mine that before the pandemic accounted for almost 2% of the world’s mined copper would further tighten global supplies that have been hit with shipping snarls and low warehouse inventories. Las Bambas has 60,770 tons of copper stranded on site. 

 

The global market remains tight and susceptible to supply disruptions. The sensitivity of the market has also been exacerbated by the surge in demand from transportation and energy infrastructure projects. In just the same way that autos are now competing with traditional demand for semiconductors, auto and wind turbine motors, recharging stations and sub-sea cables are competing with telecommunications, construction, and power line demand for copper.

European gas and power prices closed at a record high as heightened tension between Russia and Ukraine threatened to further crimp supply, increasing the risk the energy crunch will persist into next winter.

The West is hardening its stance against Russia. New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he will “do everything” to prevent Russia from using the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to cripple flows through Ukraine, while Belarus’s leader reiterated threats to halt supplies if the West presses on with sanctions in a dispute over migrants. 

The risks for Europe are mounting with gas stockpiles dropping to record lows for this time of the year and no end to the crisis in sight. Inventories are only 63% full, a level more typical for mid-January, which leaves little in reserve in case of colder weather in the coming months. If stocks fall too low, it’ll be harder to refill them in time for next winter.

The market has become accustomed to risks to the economy from an oil shock but Europe is currently going through a gas shock. The price is already multiples of where it peaked ahead of the credit crisis and closed at a new high today.

“The arable area still requires significant tonnage of synthetic fertilizer, but this is reduced by the use of manures,” Butler said. Since the animal waste from his farm is not enough, he has been buying biosolids from utility Thames Water, which produces over 750,000 meters squared of sludge each year for farmers across Britain’s southeast. 

However, Butler said that it’s increasingly difficult to source human excrement as “there is more demand than supply for biosolid materials.”

In the U.S., biosolids are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and in Europe, biosolids have been in use since 1986 when it received regulatory approval from the European Union. 

While manure is an inexpensive alternative to pricey synthetic fertilizers, it is a “poor replacement for those accustomed to traditional fertilizer products,” said Alexis Maxwell, an analyst at Bloomberg’s Green Markets. For example, the fertilizer diammonium phosphate has six times the nitrogen and 15 times the phosphate as manure on a per ton basis.

The farmer a mile from my old home in Ireland had a contract with the sewage treatment plant to buy waste. It made for a very smelly couple of days when he was spreading it on his land. However, it also meant he was not spending on costlier imports. That kind of business model has a lot more competition today, because of the surge in European natural gas prices which continue to recover from the October correction.

While the idea of mass timber has been kicking around for years, increasing pressure on developers to reduce their carbon footprint may finally help propel the market. The Economist Intelligence Unit estimates that demand for cross-laminated timber, one of the most widely used mass timber products, will grow more than 13% a year through the mid-2020s. By 2025, mass timber is expected to account for about $1.4 billion of the $14 trillion global construction industry.

Norway boasts the world’s tallest wood building at 18 stories, soon to be displaced by a 25-story mass-timber tower in Milwaukee next year. Vienna has built an entire district out of the stuff. In the U.S., the number of mass-timber buildings completed or under construction soared more than seven-fold in just three years to 576 at the end of September. Another 665 are in the design phase, according to data compiled by the Softwood Lumber Board.

Not everyone is sold on mass timber. There are concerns about its resistance to moisture and fire. And critics say its environmental benefits are overstated due to the carbon that’s released from the decay of branches and tree tops left in the forest after the wood is cut, and also through the burning of waste products like sawdust. That carbon footprint swells even more when considering wood’s shorter lifespan and greater vulnerability to natural disasters than concrete buildings, said Beverly Law, a carbon-cycle scientist and emeritus professor at Oregon State University.

“The reason you might see it catching on more is because it’s being marketed heavily by the timber industry in the U.S.,” Law said.

It strikes me as a modern form of sophistry that the carbon wells represented by standing trees are now considered inefficient at best and a liability at worst. It is very convenient that improving their carbon usefulness results in logging and using them as building materials. This same argument is used for supporting wood fired power plants and pellet heating systems. Little concern is given to the potential that trees will be cut down quicker than new ones grow if this new industry takes off.

In today's commentary you talked about Brazilian copper miners. Vale's chart seems to suggest a bottoming pattern. It is primarily an iron ore producer but it does have a copper interest. This may be a medium to long term level.

Thank you for this email. Unfortunately, Vale is a bit player in the copper sector. Its primary business is in the ferrous metal sector, so it is intimately related to China’s steel production. Vale is a major nickel producer following the acquisition of Inco more than a decade ago. That offers exposure to the battery metals sector but unfortunately nickel is the least supply constrained of the industrial metals.

a contact living in northern Portugal has informed me of the ecological disaster there being caused by Lithium mining. In the attached article we can read that thousands of protesters are marching in Serbia in opposition to Lithium mining there. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/05/rio-tinto-lithium-mine-thousands-of-protesters-block-roads-across-serbia Regards A.

There is no getting around two important facts. Mining, all mining, is destructive. It is also absolutely necessary to further the goal of global economic development of every kind. There is a good reason that most mining takes place in sparsely populated areas and most particularly in emerging markets. No one wants a mine in their backyard.

A year ago, I began a series of reviews of longer-term themes which will be updated going forward on the first Monday every month. The last was on October 1st. These reviews can be found via the search bar using the term “Secular Themes Review”.

One of the most basic truisms in the financial markets is it is easier to make money in a bull market. The bull market that began in late 2008 and early 2009 has been liquidity fuelled. That was not obvious to everyone a decade ago but now everyone gets the message. Money printing inflates asset prices. As long as central banks are printing, we will have bull markets and the most speculative assets will perform best.

In today’s Audio you stated that there was an increasing risk of deflation. This is unsurprising because the capitalist system rewards the production of cheaper and better goods, while the continuing industrialization of the under-developed countries maintains downward pressure on wages. Throw in the emergence of crypto currencies and one must ask if gold will ever regain its former status in the economic system. Your views would be appreciated.

Thank you for this question which is particularly topical as we look to the year ahead. This year has been notable for a significant uptick in inflationary pressures. The extraordinarily low base level of 2021 contributed enormously to the year over year change while the tsunami of liquidity ensured readings were above even the most ambitious forecasts. This has resulted in economic statistics hitting headlines for most of the year even though most of what has happened is a product of base effects and liquidity.

December began with record warm temperatures across the central U.S. and the promise of seasonally balmy weather for weeks ahead, holding down natural gas consumption when the world struggles with high fuel prices and inflation.

Denver reached 73 degrees Fahrenheit (22.8 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday, a record for the day, while new highs were also set in North Platte and Broken Bow in Nebraska, Bismark, North Dakota, and Rapid City, South Dakota, according to the National Weather Service. Overall, it looks like mild temperatures will dig in across the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. through at least Dec. 16.

December will likely be the third warmest going back to 1950 based on natural gas consumption, said Bradley Harvey, a meteorologist at commercial forecaster Maxar. Some of those mild trends may start to spill over into Europe and Asia as well.

“The European pattern should warm up in the middle third of the month,” Harvey said.

Atmospheric and Environmental Research updated its winter forecast earlier this week, calling for more mild conditions across the U.S. The outlook for warmer weather has killed bullish expectations that sent natural gas prices surging to the highest level in seven years in October. Traders were betting that inventories were too low to withstand a harsh winter. But warmer conditions have eroded heating demand, allowing producers to refill stockpiles to near normal levels.

I was playing tennis last night in shorts and t-shirt. It felt more like an early summer evening in Dallas than early December. That balmy weather extends across much of the USA and has contributed to natural gas prices fully unwinding the short-term overbought condition relative to the trend mean.

Turkey’s direct intervention in its currency markets on Wednesday, the first in seven years, shows policy makers are intent on drawing a line in the sand on how far they are willing to tolerate weakness in the lira.

However, how long policy makers are able to buy the currency some respite will essentially come down to the size of the war chest and how willing the central bank is to run down those assets. The Turkish central bank’s gross reserves add up to $128.5 billion, with $60.5 billion coming from the bank’s swap deals, according to latest data released on Nov. 19. When swaps and other liabilities such as required reserves are stripped, Turkey’s net reserves stand at -$35 billion. The bank has repeatedly said that its gross reserves -- the total amount at its disposal at the time -- are more important than net reserves.

The central bank’s intervention this morning is significant if only for the signaling it sends. During a previous episode of similar stress in the lira back in 2018, there was no reported intervention. In other words, the policy makers may be telling the markets that their strategy to ward off any speculation on the currency will take a different tack this time. In 2018, the central bank took the benchmark rate to 24% from 8% in a short span to arrest the decline in the lira.

Last week the lira tumbled more than 11% against the dollar in a single day, representing a 10-standard deviation shock based on its moves in the past five years. The currency has weakened after the central bank slashed its benchmark by 400 basis points since the end of August. The monetary authority meets next on Dec. 16.

Erdogan seems to remain of the opinion that the answer to high inflation is low interest rates. At the same time, he has said that the central bank’s intervention in the market, to trim the currency’s decline, is lawful. Without the ability to raise rates, the central bank has even fewer resources. Eventually it will run out of money.

British Columbia on Monday extended a state of emergency and fuel rationing until mid-December as it braces for more heavy rain. Parts of the province are still struggling with damage from floods and landslides that closed highways and railways two weeks ago, sharply reducing the flow of goods like grain and lumber to Canada’s biggest port in Vancouver.

Rainfall warnings are in effect for Vancouver, with Environment Canada forecasting a prolonged period of heavy rain through Wednesday. Total rainfall of 60 millimeters (2.4 inches) is expected over the region, and rising freezing levels and snow melt may contribute to increased runoff.

Lumber supply was a major issue in the early part of the year and prices spiked to previously unimaginable levels. That cut into demand with many projects delayed while simultaneously encouraging additional supply into the market. It was a perfect example of the commodity market adage “the cure for high prices is high prices”.

Early spring rainfall had helped yields across eastern states, while cropping regions in South Australia and Western Australia were boosted by rain and mild temperatures in October. The damage and losses from torrential rains in November are likely to be worst in New South Wales. 

Receivals of grain are already showing signs of reduced quality, though canola crops are indicating good oil content, the forecaster said. There is a risk that more heavy rains in December could spur further downgrades and the potential for more crop losses. The national winter crop is expected to reach a record 58.4 million tons, an increase of 6.6% from the September forecast.

Low quality wheat ends up as animal feed. Higher quality grains end up as bread and other products for human consumption. Even though the Euronext feed wheat and Chicago wheat futures have different delivery qualifications, they tend to share a great deal of commonality.

The result is likely to boost the Reserve Bank of Australia’s confidence in the economy’s prospects as the board prepares to review the A$4 billion weekly pace of its bond-buying program in February. Su-Lin Ong at Royal Bank of Canada put the odds of quantitative easing ending at that meeting at 30%.

The capex data is “likely to see markets continue to price in multiple hikes over the year ahead,” said Ong, head of Australian economic and fixed-income strategy at RBC. Money markets are wagering the RBA will start its policy tightening cycle with a 15 basis point hike to 0.25% by May 2022.

Today’s report showed the Covid lockdowns weighed on outlays, with total capital expenditure slipping 2.2% in the three months through September from the prior quarter. Spending on equipment, plant and machinery fell 4.1%, suggesting it will detract from economic growth in the period. 

Australian firms are looking around the world and see massive monetary and fiscal stimulus. Much of that spending will be focused on infrastructure and they are in line to benefit from outsized demand for resources. This is the time to invest in new supply before everyone else does.

Hochschild Mining Plc jumped as much as 26% after Peru’s government appeared to back away from a plan to withhold further permitting extensions at its two most important mines

“We are pleased that our Inmaculada and Pallancata mines can continue to operate without further uncertainty and, furthermore, we reaffirm our goal to increasing our resources and extending our mine lives, in accordance with current legislation,” Hochschild Chief Executive Officer Ignacio Bustamante said Thursday in a statement.

The company’s London listed stock rose as high as 153.4 pence, before trading 15% higher as of 8:16 a.m. local time.

Hochschild lost a third of its value on Monday as investors reacted to news that the company may be forced by the government to close two silver mines in the country. That followed an announcement by Prime Minister Mirtha Vasquez on Friday that four mines in the Andean region of Ayacucho wouldn’t be allowed extensions. Vasquez’s comments sent shock waves through the local mining industry.  

Those concerns now seem to easing. Vasquez said yesterday that there will be no “unilateral shutdowns.” 

Investors have been nervous about Peru’s mining sector since the April elections were won by Pedro Castillo, a former rural union activist from a Marxist party who had vowed to nationalize assets, block projects and take a bigger share of the mineral windfall to fight poverty. 

Peru is one of the world’s biggest copper producers, with operators including BHP Group, Anglo American Plc and Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

Political uncertainty is a significant hazard for resources investors. In developed countries, it is increasingly difficult to get permitting for new operations. That’s true even in “mining friendly” jurisdictions. In emerging markets, the risk is that a new government will tear up royalty agreements or appropriate assets with little notice. That risk increases the higher prices go because profits are a powerful siren call for cash-hungry governments. The parlous state of government finances may well have aided in the Peruvian government’s decision not to rock the boat with mining groups. They need the inward investment.

The world’s fish population is in a dire state, with about half of assessed stocks being overfished,
according to a study backed by Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest. 

The rate of depletion is worse than previous estimates of just over a third, Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation said in a report Sunday. A tenth of fish stocks worldwide is now on the brink of collapse, reduced to 10% of their original size, the study shows.

The findings are based on 48% of the total global catch for which there’s sufficient data, according to the report. The other half lacks information to say if they are sustainable or not. More than 1,400 stocks were assessed from 142 countries.

The journey to replenishing fish numbers isn’t easy. The report noted that it could take between three and 30 years for stocks to recover, and in many places that would require a major overhaul. The foundation recommended increased intervention and investment from governments, as well as better auditing and management practices from businesses.

Two important characteristics to the global fishery are worth considering. The first is overfishing which is a current problem and will likely get worse. The second is cyclicality. We have enough back data to conclude the Pacific goes through long warming and cooling cycles. Together with intense fishing, the current time is when we would expect to have lower catches of small pelagics like sardines and anchovy.

While some factories have already resumed operation after the mandatory power rationing expired, for instance GCL-Poly revealed that their 36,000 tonnes polysilicon factory has already restarted production after making use of the 2-week suspension period to undergo repair and maintenance, most solar materials have also witnessed significant price increase under the adverse effect of supply reduction. One of the clear examples is the sharp price rally of silicon raw material, which is the major material for making polysilicon and on average account for 40% of polysilicon’s production cost. The silicon raw material price rose sharply from USD 2.4/kg in Aug-21 to the peak of USD 10.4/kg in late Sep-21, before gradually normalizing to USD 6/kg in Nov (See Exhibit 3), especially after the Yunnan government decided to restrict the utilization of most energy-intensive production, including silicon raw material, by 90% starting from Sep in 2021. It is noteworthy that Yunnan accounts for 20% of total silicon raw material production in China, while Xinjiang and Sichuan’s market shares are 40% and 15% respectively. In our view, the cost pressure originated from silicon raw material price rally would gradually pass down the supply chain, implying subsequent solar material price hike would continue to emerge in other segments.

China has historically been willing to do whatever it takes to capture market share in emerging industries. That helped it dominate the entire supply chain for solar panels in the last decade. Deploying excess energy from coal fired power stations into polysilicon production was a big part of that strategy.

MacLennan said in September that soaring food costs would prove transitory and should dissipate in time. Since then, the rally in energy prices and continued supply-chain snarls have made markets “a lot tighter,” he said.

“When you have limited supply, that can lead to higher prices,” MacLennan said. However, he noted that China hasn’t been buying crops as aggressively as it did last year, while North American harvests are robust. “That takes some pressure off the system.”

A search for greener airplane fuel and biodiesel is also pitting food against energy production, leading to tighter edible oil supplies. Prices for palm oil, the world’s most consumed vegetable oil, have soared about 50% in the past year, while soybean oil is up 60%. Canola, also used to make oil, is near a record.

The food-versus-fuel tension will become more intense than it’s ever been in the last 15 years, MacLennan said. The day will come when more agricultural products will be used for energy than food, so it will be incumbent upon the farmers of the world to innovate and become more productive, he added.

Using food for fuel should be a much more controversial practice. We are literally substituting political idealism for the wellbeing of millions of people. The fact that palm oil demand is soaring because of its use as both a food ingredient and a fuel is a useful example of how the environmental lobby often does more harm than good.

Meanwhile, mines across China and India have been ramping up production in recent weeks to ease a supply crunch that’s caused widespread power shortages and curbs on industrial activity. China’s miners have beaten a government target to raise output to 12 million tons a day, while India’s daily production is close to 2 million tons.

“The power cuts since mid-to-late September show that we are still not prepared enough,” Yang Weimin, a member of the economic committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a government advisor, told a conference in Beijing on Saturday. Additional funding is needed to ensure coal plants can be used to complement a rising share of renewables, he said.

Coal’s share in global electricity generation fell in 2020 to 34%, the smallest in more than two decades, though it remains the single largest power source, according to BloombergNEF.

In China, it accounted for about 62% of electricity generation last year. President Xi Jinping has set a target for the nation to peak its consumption of the fuel in 2025, and aims to have non-fossil fuel energy sources exceed 80% of its total mix by 2060.

For India, coal is even more important, representing 72% of electricity generation. The fuel will still make up 21% of India’s electricity mix by 2050, BNEF analysts including Atin Jain said in a note last month.

The focus on attention right now is on the willingness and potential of both India and China to eventually limit their use of coal. Much less attention is focused on Africa where the bulk of population growth is occurring. The next couple of billion people will mostly be born in Africa. That means increasing demand for power and higher standards of living as the continent urbanises. 

Investors will keep a close eye on UMich inflation expectations, due at 10 a.m. NYT. Another piece of the inflation picture that bears attention is the auto supply-chain crunch that’s been an exceptionally large contributor to rising prices.

News from Toyota adds to signs that supply issues may finally be easing. The carmaker is targeting greater December output than it’s seen in recent years, with next month set to be the first time in seven months that all of Toyota’s production lines in Japan will be operating normally.

That follows an Oct. 31 report that GM had no chips-related downtime scheduled in North America, the first time it had been able to resume full production since February. BMW’s results showed it’s muscling through the chip shortage, and Ford said revenue and profit rose due to increases in chip availability and vehicle shipments. Smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm‘s outlook, and steel and freight shifts, have also added to recent signs of broader relief.

Yet consumers may not feel like there’s been a downshift. U.S. used-vehicle prices rose 9.2% in October, according to Manheim Auctions; the index was up 38% from a year earlier. Reported used-vehicle inflation is also lower than suggested by the Manheim index, suggesting another big print for November’s CPI, as my colleague Cameron Crise pointed out.

There is clear potential that we are looking at the peak of supply disruption for chips. This is obviously a nuanced topic because there are lots of different kinds of chips and not every sector requires the same types of components. However, on aggregate, the supply of chips to the sectors that have contributed most to inflationary pressures is improving.

Earlier this year, we touched on the snap elections in Greenland, where the victorious left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit party ran in opposition to the promising Kvanefjeld mining project on the southern tip of the island.

Australian firm Greenland Minerals had been working to secure a mining license for the project.

“The project is centred on the globally unique Ilimaussaq Alkaline Complex in southern Greenland,” the firm says on its website. “To date over 1 billion tonnes of mineral resources (JORC-code compliant) have been delineated in the project area, across three different zones – Kvanefjeld, Sørensen and Zone 3. Mineralisation is hosted by a rock-type called lujavrite, and is enriched in rare earths, uranium, and zinc.”

However, Greenland’s parliament voted Tuesday to ban uranium mining and exploration, effectively halting the project.

On Wednesday, Greenland Minerals submitted a request for a trading halt “pending an update to the market regarding passing of legislation concerning uranium, in the Greenland parliament.” As of Wednesday, the company had yet to release a statement about parliament’s decision.

Greenland has some of the most promising rare earth and uranium deposits in the world and the receding ice is revealing additional untapped potential sources of minerals. Shutting down exploration/development of uranium removes potential sources of new supply from the global market. It could well be terminal for Greenland Minerals.

Newcrest Mining Ltd. agreed to buy Pretium Resources Inc. in a cash and shares deal valuing the Canadian gold producer at about $2.8 billion, adding to a wave of consolidation in the sector.

Melbourne-based Newcrest will offer Pretium holders C$18.50 ($14.87) a share, a 23% premium to the target’s closing price Monday in Toronto. Pretium’s board has unanimously recommended the transaction, although it still requires the approval of two-thirds of the company’s shareholders.   

“Our strategy is to specialize in low-cost, long-life and large-scale gold mines, and this is certainly that,” Sandeep Biswas, Newcrest’s managing director and chief executive officer, said on a media call. Adding Pretium, which owns the Brucejack operation close to Newcrest’s Red Chris mine in British Columbia, would immediately add more than 300,000 ounces a year of gold output, the company said, taking annual production to more than 2 million ounces. 

Exploration and development is risky, expensive and time consuming. M&A by contrast is quick, the reserves are relatively well understood but the upfront cost tends to be headline grabbing. That’s why timing of purchases is so important. Miners have a long dismal history of paying record prices at market peaks. At least on this occasion Newcrest is buying Pretium after a good-sized shakeout.

In contradistinction to your bullish backdrop for gold and your contention of an eventual breakout (not breakdown) of the price, I would appreciate your comments on the relevance and significance of this part of the John Authers’ Points of Return article in Bloomberg this morning:

The Loser of the Year of the Vaccine: Gold
The last 12 months have seen a steady rise in inflation, yet gold has Authors taken a drubbing. That is weird, because the precious metal has long been regarded, more or less correctly, as a hedge against inflation and monetary debasement. There’s been a lot of both inflation and money-printing in the last 12 months, and yet gold has declined, with miners of the metal becoming the single worst-performing sector in the S&P 500.

We would have found this even harder to predict if we had been told a year ago that real yields would stay solidly and historically negative. Gold has no yield and historically has a strong inverse relationship with real yields. The less bonds pay after inflation, the less unappealing gold will appear. But real yields have remained bafflingly low and that hasn’t helped:

As the chart indicates, there is only one other period since the crisis that looks anything much like this. Unfortunately, that was in 2012 and early 2013, when real yields stayed low during the Federal Reserve’s “QE Infinity” and gold began to fall. It turned out on that occasion that the price was telling us something. The spring of 2013 saw first a dramatic fall for gold and then the “taper tantrum” as bond yields shot upward in response to a hawkish Fed.

Another indicator looks surprising. The ratio of stocks to gold, the effective price of the S&P 500 in ounces rather than dollars, has stayed surprisingly constant since Richard Nixon removed the U.S. from the last vestiges of the gold standard in 1971. The S&P has been worth more in gold terms than it was in 1971 only for a few years at the top of the 1990s bull market. Despite all the worries about debasement, that golden ratio is now stronger than it was in 1971, and at a 16-year high:

It’s possible that gold’s admirers have deserted it for cryptocurrencies, of course. There are various explanations out there. But the interpretation that it’s telling us to beware a possible tantrum in the bond market and correction in stocks seems fair.

Thank you for this email which raises a number of important points. I don’t mind admitting I have found the Dow/Gold ratio to be particularly perplexing over the last three years. For the first 15 years of my career, it was the most reliable of all long-term ratios. It had a wonderful history of cyclicality which depicted the ebb and flow of capital between asset classes over more than a century. It was one of the primary tools for rationalising the beginning of a secular bull market in equities from 2011 onwards. Then it pulled back in a big way in 2018 which raised big questions about the consistency of the move.

Gains in Treasuries may be partly driven by short-covering, which appears to have contributed to Thursday’s U.K.-led rally. CME Group Inc.’s preliminary open-interest data for Treasury futures show steep declines, in particular for the two-year note contract. Open interest in two-year note futures fell 2.3%, its biggest drop in three weeks.

Fed officials continue to emphasize that inflation is too high even as they hope to foster labor-market recovery by keeping interest rates low.

Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George Friday said “the risk of a prolonged period of elevated inflation has increased,” and “the argument for patience in the face of these inflation pressures has diminished.”

The declines in 10- and 30-year yields -- which fell as much as 6.5 basis points to 1.899%, the lowest since Sept. 23 -- come despite next week’s auctions of those tenors. The auctions, whose sizes were announced on Nov. 3, are smaller than the previous new-issue auctions in August, however. The reductions were the first since 2016.

The longer-term inflationary trend is being driven by wage demand growth and the upward pressure on the cost of housing and rents. However, it does not all happen at once, and some of the supply inelasticity factors that contributed to inflation over the last year are easing.

The acquisition of Lone Tree and Ruby Hill makes I-80 the premier gold developer in the US, and on par with the best developers in Canada and Australia. For SCPe capex of US$458m, we estimate that I-80 can reach annual production of >400koz/year. Adding the Ruby Hill open pit, we estimate 2026-2031e average annual production of 500koz(peaking at 638koz) at LOM US$1,155/oz AISC. On defined resources alone, this generates an NPV5%-1850 of US$1.73bn. Uplift to producer peer averages results in annualized returns of 21-31% from present to 2026e. Moreover, all of I-80’s assets have exploration upside at depth with limited historic exploration for sulphides due to a lack of sulphide processing capacity. To reiterate: a path to 500kozpa, exploration upside, sulphide processing ability and 20% annual returns equates to one of the best risk-adjusted return opportunities in the gold miner/developer peer group. We update our model for the transaction and reiterate our BUY rating and lift our price target to C$7.00/sh on our unchanged target multiple of 0.75xNAV5%-1850. Stepping back, yes for newcomers this is a complex set of assets but upside is spectacular and with domestic US assets in a mining friendly state.  

The big challenge for gold explorers is securing acreage in close proximity to major mines. That greatly enhances their chances of securing funding because they can point to their neighbours and argue that where gold was found once it can be found again.

China’s bracing for a cold snap this week, with temperatures in some regions forecast to fall by as much as 15 degrees Celsius. Vegetable prices typically rise when the temperature drops in winter and supply is unable to catch up with increasing demand before the Lunar New Year holiday.

The Monday statement told local commerce departments to coordinate more to improve local and inter-provincial supply chains for vegetables and also to strengthen monitoring of the prices of key staples such as vegetables and meat. 

Major agricultural distributors were encouraged to sign long-term contracts with producers, while provinces in both southern and northern China were told to improve their vegetable reserve systems and also release meat and vegetables from the reserves in a timely manner to replenish supplies. 

The call to stock up on food comes less than two weeks after a different government department told companies not to hoard food. 

 

Food prices are rising everywhere and that is putting everyone on edge. The experience of empty supermarket shelves was isolated to only a few household items during the pandemic while supply of staples was relatively constant. We’re still eating the rice we bought in January 2020 as a precautionary measure for example. (The chocolate is long gone).

For most of my 40 year career, analysts have mocked poor management in the mining business. The wisdom is that gold mines -perhaps with the exception of royalty or streaming financiers- are low quality, cyclical investments that only work when the cycle is right. Management doesn’t matter. The gold price -and luck with your timing- do. So I was intrigued by this chart. After decades of devouring investors capital for capital-intensive projects and surviving on shareholder bounty, the current generation of gold miners have finally got the message. They have done so when most of their all-in, sustainable costs cluster around USD 1,000 an ounce. Gold trades near USD 1800. Free cash flow yield (FCFY) measures the free cash flow (net profits plus depreciation less annualized capex) as a percentage of a company’s market value. It can be compared to the yield on a bond or a cash deposit. Gold mining, handcuffed by capital constraints after years of shareholder abuse, is now the highest yielding sector on the planet, with a FCFY of 7%, roughly double that of the rest of the market. During the last 2001-2012 bull cycle, when most gold shares multi-bagged, they never really got close to cash positivity. This is money -or maybe gold- that can be paid to investors and it is on the increase. In a yield deprived, inflationary age, is this not El Dorado?

It is going to take a long time to shake the reputation miners’ earned for being capital destroyers. The move to positive free cash flow yields is indeed positive and is helping to support the shares of the major miners during what has been a lengthy correction for the gold price.

It’s last call for cheap beer. Rising input costs are soaring across the globe, fueled by withering barley supplies and surging aluminum costs, plus the same labor and transport bottlenecks plaguing every other industry. In North America, dry weather scorched fields, which typically produce enough barley to account for about 20% of global commercial beer production. In the U.S., American farmers reaped the smallest crop since 1934, just after Prohibition ended, while in Canada - - the fifth-largest producer -- barley output shrunk 34% to the second-smallest harvest since 1968

The cost of both barley and aluminium might be rising but there is increasing evidence that brewers are using this as an opportunity to raise prices. Many consumers have been couped up at home for more than a year and they are probably more willing to accept a price increase now than before the pandemic if they can get some semblance of their normal social life back.

How do you convince truckers to work when their pay isn’t guaranteed, even to the point where they lose money?

Nobody is compelling the transportation industries to make the needed changes to their infrastructure. There are no laws compelling them to hire the needed workers, or pay them a living wage, or improve working conditions. And nobody is compelling them to buy more container chassis units, more cranes, or more storage space. This is for an industry that literally every business in the world is reliant on in some way or another.

My prediction is that nothing is going to change and the shipping crisis is only going to get worse. Nobody in the supply chain wants to pay to solve the problem. They literally just won’t pay to solve the problem. At the point we are at now, things are so backed up that the backups THEMSELVES are causing container companies, ports, warehouses, and trucking companies to charge massive rate increases for doing literally NOTHING. Container companies have already decreased the maximum allowable times before containers have to be back to the port, and if the congestion is so bad that you can’t get the container back into the port when it is due, the container company can charge massive late fees. The ports themselves will start charging massive storage fees for not getting containers out on time — storage charges alone can run into thousands of dollars a day. Warehouses can charge massive premiums for their services, and so can trucking companies. Chronic understaffing has led to this problem, but it is allowing these same companies to charge ten times more for regular services. Since they’re not paying the workers any more than they did last year or five years ago, the whole industry sits back and cashes in on the mess it created. In fact, the more things are backed up, the more every point of the supply chain cashes in. There is literally NO incentive to change, even if it means consumers have to do holiday shopping in July and pay triple for shipping.

I was at the bonded warehouse in Dallas this morning to pick up Mrs. Treacy’s Christmas inventory. There is a great deal of talk at present about the supply chain crisis so I thought subscribers might be interested to know how long it took for us to get our goods.

As inflation continues to develop in the economy, see below the incredible link between gold and CPI since the GFC.

Note how after the pandemic lows, gold front ran the potential risk of a rise in consumer prices and the entire precious metals market appreciated sharply.

It is important to remember that before recently peaking, gold had been going on a streak for two years already.

The metal was up more than 75% from August 2018 to August 2020 and even reached historical highs during this period.

Back then, with CPI around 1%, very few investors foresaw inflation as a risk to the economy. Now it is a real problem.

We think gold likely appreciated too quick and too fast becoming what some thought as an obvious trade.

Extreme sentiment probably explains the reason for its recent weakness after signaling way earlier than any other asset the possibility that an inflationary environment could be ahead of us.
We are now on the other side of this extreme.

 

I have a lot of sympathy with the view that gold ran ahead for almost two years so it was due a pause. We also know that medium-term corrections in gold can last up to 18 months so it is a good time to start looking at the sector again since the peak was in August 2020.

Although uranium mining is a global activity, only a handful of companies account for the majority of production.

The top 10 uranium mining companies accounted for 85% of global production in 2020.

The demand for this uranium come from nuclear reactors around the world.

There is no groundswell of support for a new massive round of reactor building. At least, not yet. The anti-nuclear lobby has been incredibly successful in pushing their agenda, over the last sixty years, and not least because of the Cold War and the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Robusta coffee futures rallied to the highest in more than a decade driven by dwindling stockpiles for the beans favored for instant-coffee brands such as Nestle SA’s Nescafe. 

January futures in London jumped as much as 3.8% to $2,278 a ton, the highest for a most-active contract since September 2011. Arabica coffee also rose in New York. 

Both varieties have climbed more than 60% this year after drought and frosts damaged the arabica crop in Brazil, the No. 1 coffee producer, boosting demand for the cheaper robustas. The January-March spread in London surged to record premium. 

At the same time, soaring shipping costs are hindering a draw down of hefty stockpiles in robusta giant Vietnam. Exchange-monitored stockpiles for both varieties have continued to slide as roasters tap stored reserves.  

Technical-trading indicators are “very positive” and that attracted more buying, plus “there’s concern that flows have been paralyzed out of Vietnam because of the lack of container and elevated freights,” said Hernando de la Roche, senior vice president at StoneX Financial in Miami.

The Baltic Dry Index is currently unwinding a short-term overbought condition so that will take some of the pressure off of exporters of just about everything. Nevertheless, it will be quite some time before the port bottlenecks are eliminated.

“Gold and silver’s recent strong run of gains received a temporary setback on Friday in response to a sudden bout of taper tantrum following comments by Fed Chair Powell,” Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S, said in a note. “At the same time, however, he talked down the risk of raising interest rates while also expressing concern over persistently elevated inflation.” 

Around the world, central banks are raising interest rates in response to inflationary pressures that are both more persistent and intense than many anticipated. Some countries will benefit from this turn of events. They have positive balance of payments, booming exports and their currencies are appreciating. That group is concentrated among the commodity exporters.

Brazil analysts expect a higher interest rate both this year and next after the government said it would
circumvent the public spending cap to increase spending on the poor.

The central bank will lift the Selic to 8.75% at the end of this year and 9.5% in 2022, up from prior projections of 8.25% and 8.75% respectively, according to a survey published on Monday. Analysts also lifted their year-end inflation forecasts to 8.96% this year and 4.40% in 2022, both above target. 

President Jair Bolsonaro announced last week plans for cash transfers to the poorest that would be financed either by a waiver or changes to the spending cap rule. The increased spending, coupled with a fresh plunge in the currency, are boosting bets that policy makers will have to raise borrowing
costs faster. The central bank will meet over rates Tuesday and Wednesday.

With annual inflation running above 10%, policy makers led by Roberto Campos Neto had promised their third consecutive rate hike of a full percentage point this week. But now analysts at major Wall Street firms expect them to deliver an increase of at least 125 basis points. 
 

It’s hard to imagine that 8.5% in short-term rates still represent negative real interest rates for Brazil. Inflation running at 10% is a major challenge for any government but especially during a time when a restive population is agitating for more spending and better conditions.

Russia's central bank aggressively raised its interest rate for the sixth time in a row Friday in an
effort to slow soaring food prices, and did not rule out further hikes.

Rising prices, falling incomes and a lack of tangible government support during the pandemic have been eroding popular support for President Vladimir Putin's two-decade rule, and authorities are under pressure to ease inflation.

At a meeting on Friday, the Bank of Russia increased its key rate by 0.75 percentage points to 7.50 percent, surprising many analysts who had expected a smaller hike.

The bank said that more hikes could follow and revised up inflation predictions.

"Inflation is developing substantially above the Bank of Russia's forecast and is expected to be within the range of 7.4-7.9 percent at the end of 2021," the bank said.

The Bank of Russia said that as of October 18, inflation stood at 7.8 percent but was expected to return to 4.0-4.5 percent next year.

"The central bank continues to act decisively and proactively," Dmitry Polevoy, head of investment at Locko Invest, said in a note to clients.

After months of historically low inflation, consumer prices began to climb in March 2020, driven by a drop in the ruble's value in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

The central bank started raising its historically low rate the same month. Its next rate review meeting is scheduled for December 17. In September, the bank raised its interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 6.75 percent.

Russia is a major grain producer but is also reliant on imports for many additional food stuffs. That offers a graphic representation of how everyone is susceptible to the fragility of the global supply chain. Shutting the whole world down eighteen months ago had a dire effect on the ability of producers to manage their operations. The ensuing volatility has taken much longer than anyone thought to iron out and it is not over yet.