(Bloomberg) — Worries over surging global food costs are easing as prices of everything from cooking oils to wheat and corn tumble to the lowest levels in months on increasing physical supplies and as investors reduce their bullish bets on futures markets. Palm oil, the world’s most consumed edible oil, has plunged more than 40% […]
Read MoreGrowth investing leans heavily on the principle that “a stock tends to follow the direction of its previous trend,” which may just be a nerdy way to say that the longer a stock has been going up, the more likely it is to keep going up. It is also why growth investors shun stocks that […]
Read MoreAfter COVID-19 dominated headlines through 2020 and 2021, there is one word that can sum up market concerns this year, and it isn’t pandemic. Inflation is one of those words that tends to stoke fear in the marketplace, because it is usually tied so closely with the ebb and flow of interest rates. The reality […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — Rising food prices and turbulent global commodities markets are fueling a surge in wealth for the billionaire family behind America’s largest closely held company. Three more members of the Cargill family — siblings James Cargill, Austen Cargill and Marianne Liebmann — have joined the ranks of the world’s 500 richest people thanks to […]
Read MoreAs a conservative-minded, value and fundamental-driven investor, my natural tendency is to shy away from stocks that market experts and popular market media analysts tend to talk to the most about. That means that my investments rarely look very sexy – but I’m far more interested in being able to keep my money working for […]
Read More(Bloomberg) — Two crops dominate U.S. farming: corn and soybeans. The former requires massive amounts of fertilizer. The latter requires very little. Which is why the astronomical surge in fertilizer prices — they’re up some 27% this year and 130% over the past year — is causing farmers to quickly re-calibrate the amount of each […]
Read MoreThis week has seen the market pick up a lot of bearish momentum and increased volatility, but now the commentary and focus doesn’t center around economic indicators, COVID infection rates, or even about the spectre of increasing interest rates. Market commentary is now primarily dominated by headlines and information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and […]
Read MoreMarket volatility has picked up since the beginning of the year, with all three major indices now sitting at legitimate correction levels. The good news is that this week, all three indices look like they may have started to stabilize, finding support that could provide a new basis for another rally back in the direction […]
Read MoreOne of the themes that has become more and more prevalent over the past year in the stock market is the pace of inflation. Inflation is one of those words that tends to stoke fear in the marketplace, because it is usually tied so closely with central bank monetary policy. it is also something that […]
Read MoreAs a conservative-minded, value and fundamental-driven investor, my natural tendency is to shy away from stocks that market experts and popular market media analysts tend to talk to the most about. That means that my investments rarely look very sexy – but I’m far more interested in being able to keep my money working for […]
Read MoreThe Food Products industry in the Consumer Staples sector is an area of the market that tends to get overlooked because, let’s face it, it just isn’t very sexy. Even so, it is one of very few segments of the market that saw consumer-driven improvements in demand in 2020, especially in the early stages of […]
Read MoreFor more than two years – even before COVID-19 became a global pandemic that collapsed economic and social activity for most of 2020 and that continues to strain health care systems and keep pressure on a variety of economic forces – I’ve been writing about the wisdom in being very selective about the investments you […]
Read MoreAs wrap up 2021 and look toward 2022, the sad and simple truth is that, no matter how much we might want to be able stop including COVID-19 and its impact on every aspect of life in our daily discussions, the health crisis hasn’t gone away, but instead is showing more persistence than any of […]
Read MoreOver the last three years, I’ve used economic uncertainty – first from a year-long trade war through 2019, and then of course the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020 – as the basis for a lot of the analysis, and certainly some of my own investments in the marketplace. I think that when economic conditions become […]
Read MoreThis week has seen the market reclaim much of the ground it gave up after Thanksgiving, as fears about the new omicron coronavirus variant have eased as indications are that while it is, indeed highly contagious, it also seems to be less severe than other variants, like delta that continue to plague global health systems. […]
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