Steadfast Finances

 Career,Commodities         2 comments

When it’s tough to find a job or you’re limited to part time employment, plus up to your eyeballs in student loan debt, it would seem logical that you don”t have much of a choice but to grow your own food and hope you can turn a profit selling to the locovores. Now, Mr. Jones, [...]

 Commodities,Gas Prices         1 comment

If you think 2007 oil bubble highs of $147 per barrel based on “global demand” was bad, just imagine what’s going to happen to oil prices if the stalwart of Middle Eastern oil production stability — Saudi Arabia — falls into civil unrest (e.g. Egypt), or worse, outright civil war (e.g. Libya). As we speak, [...]

 Commodities,Investing 101         No comments

Just because you fancy yourself a momentum trader even though you’ve had your E*Trade account for a whole year, it doesn’t mean you should rush out and try to make money on whatever NBC Nightly News says is the newest game in town. By the time an investment opportunity makes it to the 6 o’clock [...]

 Commodities,Personal Finance         No comments

Hooray for quantitative easing… By the fall, people will most likely be paying more … as rising prices hit most consumer goods, say retailers, food companies and manufacturers of consumer products. Cotton prices are near their highest level in more than a decade, after adjusting for inflation, and leather and polyester costs are jumping as [...]

 Commodities,Gas Prices,Infographics & Chartology         No comments

Right on cue, I’m starting to field reader questions about commodities. In particular, are companies who sell oil, fertilizer or any other raw commodity might need to fuel their rapidly growing economy. Making money is always the prime objective, just remember that the last time these were in play — the 2008 commodities bubble — [...]

 Consumer Education,Infographics & Chartology,Personal Finance         1 comment

2010 will likely be remembered as a year of the melt up recovery and as a return to all things financially sanguine, but for commodity traders and chartists who keep watchful eyes on the commodities market, 2010 could arguably be considered a year where inflation (perhaps even hyperinflation) took home the blue ribbon. The only [...]

 Investing 101         No comments

While CNBC is a valued resource to many, including myself, many long time viewers I’ve spoken with are troubled by it’s continued evolution into a sponsor (too) friendly, investment product marketing machine where trading — not investing — is the new marching meme. Case in point: Josh Brown’s, aka The Reformed Broker, appearance today. Brown: [...]

 Commodities,Consumer Education,Personal Finance,Public Awareness         No comments

Interesting segment here from CNBC’s Jane Wells, who does an annual cost comparison of what a proper Thanksgiving dinner cost her in 2009 versus 2010 in southern California. [video] What doesn’t get mentioned, amidst all the hoopla of rising commodity prices causing food inflation, a very calm agriculture economist assuring us that food inflation is [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Personal Finance         2 comments

Unless you have fallen victim to the silent taxation effect of the dastardly grocery store shrink ray (e.g. less food in the container), you would know that food inflation is here in a major way. In 2010 alone, I’ve seen my dollars, or at least it appears as such, that my November 2010 dollars buy [...]

 Infographics & Chartology,Saving Money         1 comment

Excellent chartporn from the Wall Street Journal in how the Great Recession altered American’s spending habits broken down in income quintiles (five 20% groupings). [click to enlarge image] Notice the change in elastic commodities (alcohol, retail apparel, etc.) versus inelastic commodities like food for a healthy home cooked meal. Not to delve too deeply into [...]

 Budgeting,Commodities         4 comments

I get a laugh out of folks who say… speculators have little or no effect in the everyday lives of consumers. Really? Wheat futures Ostensibly, it’s never a good thing when a vast supply of any commodity, in this case, wheat, is taken out of the supply and demand equation by a devastating round of [...]

 Business Trends,Commodities,Green Living         No comments

Looks like the old adage “If you want to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs” holds true in the case of green technology and renewable energy. You want to go on a path to a green future? That path starts in a mine. The first step in the supply chain for [...]