Top 10 Cities

Some observations. 1. For 1500 years the maximum size of cities was capped at around 450,000 inhabitants. 2. China has always had a massive population advantage over the rest of the world – this advantage remains today. Although whether it is always an economic advantage can be questioned. 3. By 1900 you can see the…

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Commodities and the CRB Index

I thought it would be instructive to look at the relative performance of commodities over select time frames and then to look at this in the wider context. For those not familiar with the CRB Index it is a weighted commodity index with the predominant weighting being energy related issues such as crude. This weighting…

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CFDs

The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) in a profound act of ignorance and nannying has called for a ban on investors trading derivatives such as CFDs until they can prove that they are capable of doing so. ”In our experience, the only investors who trade in CFDs successfully are sophisticated traders who watch and manage their…

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More oil

I am beginning to wonder whether the mere fact that people are betting on oil moving to $200 a barrel will not in some way become a self fulfilling prophecy. The interesting thing about options trading is that the easiest way to go broke (other than writing puts) is to buy deep out of the…

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