Ukraine At The Center: The Russian invasion of Ukraine dominated the commodities markets as can be deduced from these two graphics.  The first demonstrates Europe’s acquired dependency on Russia for energy – almost equal to what Europe produces directly.  While the EU laid out grand plans in early March to…

COVID-19   Omicron Followed the Script as the seven-day average cases peaked in the US on January 11th per Reuters at 704k, and quickly fell off to 63k by February 28th. US average deaths per day peaked at 2.7k in mid-February and fell to 1.5k.  We are still awaiting the…

During the month of February, the top 3 performing sectors were: grains (+9.54%), metals (+5.25%), and livestock (+4.80%). The bottom 3 sectors were: indices (-3.62%), interest rates (-0.47%) and currencies (+0.79%). February saw spillover volatility from the previous month with all eyes on eastern Europe. As Russia made its aggressive…

Taiwan’s Next:  Hard Power versus Soft Power  In February the world saw a naked demonstration of what is called “hard power” or the willingness of a country to coerce another to get what it wants.  By comparison, “soft power” persuades others to achieve its goals.  The power approach generally reflects…