This past weekend marked the start of the year of the Water Rabbit, based on the Chinese lunar calendar. The combination of the rabbit and yin water “bodes well for a calmer 2023 compared to last year’s tumultuous experience,” writes CLSA in its annual Feng Shui Index. Deutsche Bank, meanwhile…

Shares of global airline stocks advanced more than 12% last week, indicating that investors were unfazed by the service outage that temporarily grounded planes in the U.S. United Airlines was the best performer for the week, up 22%, followed by American Airlines (20%) and Frontier Airlines (17%). For the one-month…

At the beginning of each year, we update our ever-popular Periodic Table of Commodity Returns, which is fully interactive and includes 10 years’ worth of data. A pdf of the table is also available for download. Long-time fans will notice a new inclusion to this year’s table: lithium. The soft…

Investors who use a 60/40 portfolio had a rough year. In the past, putting 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds has often helped investors hedge against losses in either asset class. But 2022 had other ideas. Below is a scatter plot of returns for the S&P 500 (the x-axis)…

Last week, thousands of Americans lived out a real-life version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, the 1987 comedy that saw Steve Martin and John Candy trying to combat flight delays and cancellations and make it home in time for Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, many travelers didn’t experience the Hollywood ending they…

Scientists at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California announced the first-ever demonstration of fusion “ignition.” This means that more energy was generated from fusion than was needed to operate the high-powered lasers that triggered the reaction. …

Will 2023 be the year that gold hits $3,000 an ounce? Ole Hansen, respected commodity strategist at Denmark’s Saxo Bank, says it’s possible once markets realize that global inflation will remain hot despite monetary tightening. I believe, as I’ve said before, that gold could climb as high as $4,000. Hansen…

Over the past 12 months, global container shipping rates have steadily declined to their long-term averages as supply chain snarls have receded and backups at ports have disappeared. Now, another segment of the cargo shipping industry is seeing day rates explode to record highs. So-called dirty tankers, those that carry…

Commercial air travel in the U.S. was incredibly robust last week, with passenger volumes topping or exceeding 2.3 million on most days. …