I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about some odd happenings in the T-Bill market. Between June 1 and 14, yields on the four-week Treasury fell off a cliff. Diving from 0.15% to as low as 0.02%. An 87% decrease in a very short period of time. Other short-term securities also saw yields plunge. The 13-week...
Full Post »

We’re living in an age of commodities volatility. The last ten years have seen a number of big price swings for many natural resources. Uranium ran from $10 to $140, and then back to $40. Oil hit $145 then plummeted back to $35. Copper went from $4 to $1.25 and then back to $3.50 (and...
Full Post »

Bank of Japan Deputy Governor Kiyohiko Nishimura discusses “informational advantage” this week at the Lujiazui Forum on economics and finance in Shanghai: “In my understanding, the Volcker Rule is designed to deter banks from taking excessive risk in capital markets, where volatility is inherently high and...
Full Post »

Coal. Specifically, any coal that can be easily shipped to Asia. Despite all of today’s carbon concerns, the world still largely runs on coal. In fact, according to BP’s recently-released annual energy review, coal’s share of global energy use increased in 2009. In fact, the percentage of global energy demand met by coal was the...
Full Post »

$12 billion is 1.1% of $1.127 trillion. These are important numbers. And the gap between them is even more critical. According to testimony by U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner before Congress this week, $12 billion is the total amount of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) purchased under the “Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP)” to date. A year ago, the PPIP...
Full Post »

As promised last week, I want to show you why I’m really interested in uranium projects. Uranium is a very unusual sector. For one, it’s small. So small, that at one point in history top-producing nations like Canada and France tried to form a uranium cartel to control prices for the metal. The “uranium OPEC” failed....
Full Post »

A bit of a fun one for Friday. JODI is the Joint Oil Data Initiative. A project run by the International Energy Agency and a consortium of partners, collecting data on oil demand and supply around the world. Every month, JODI polls nearly 100 nations asking about their crude production, imports, stockpiles and...
Full Post »

Asia is one of the more interesting gas markets in the world. Places like Thailand and its southeast Asian neighbors have seen phenomenal demand growth over the last several years. Total has said they’re in Thailand for gas. (Part of the reason I believe Thai shale gas may become an interesting play...
Full Post »

I wrote last month that several economic indicators seemed to be turning positive. I may have spoke too soon. The last two weeks a number of key stats have taken a notable turn for the worse. U.S. commercial paper yields, for one. I know I’ve been talking about this a lot lately, but the...
Full Post »

Australia sent the major miners into a tailspin overnight. The Rudd government announced Sunday night that it will impose a new “resource super profits” tax on mining, oil and gas, geothermal and other resource extraction in the nation. Under the scheme, resource companies will pay a 40% tax on profits. Implementation is scheduled...
Full Post »