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Rioting over food inflation due to ethanol

While Al Gore is busy preaching about global warming and environmentalists around the world hail ethanol as a solution to the "global warming" problem, the less fortunate, poorer countries in the world are in the midst of political turmoil as citizens riot and protest over soaring food prices.

As reported by Marketwatch: "In Egypt, headline inflation jumped to 14.4% in March, with the pace of food price rises soaring to 20.5% year-on-year from 16.8% in February. In addition, the country is suffering from shortages of bread, which is heavily subsidized by the government."

As global demand for soft commodities soars, Egypt, like many other countries, is confronting surging food prices, which have stirred popular discontent and demonstrations." We have seen demonstrations as well in Haiti, and we all know about surging food inflation in China. Countries like India, Vietnam and Cambodia, have limited rice exports as well. Why? Because farmers, heavily subsidized, have turned over crops in order to grow corn for ethanol production. Funny how environmentalists say climate change is a problem that in 25-30 years could cause significant destruction to the earth. Of course global hunger and starvation could cause more havoc, in the very near term, but they don't mention that.

Continue reading Rioting over food inflation due to ethanol

Wait 'til the sun shines to sell your stock

Rainy day A cold day in hell -- or at least on Wall Street -- is the best time to buy stock. At least, that's what studies spanning 16 years and 26 different stock markets have found.

According to the Washington Post, "If you consistently bought stocks when the sky was gray and overcast and consistently sold stocks when the weather was bright and sunny, and you did this over a period of 16 years across 26 stock markets around the world, you would ... well, let's just say you'd be lounging on a sunny beach right now."

Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results. And the transaction costs of "Buy cloudy, sell sunny" are so high that I don't think investors should swap out of their index funds just yet. But the studies are interesting in that they raise questions about the efficient market hypothesis and the idea of homo econimicus.

What rational investor would sell his stock because it's cloudy? And yet it seems that, at least subconsciously, people do exactly that.

I'd be interested in what efficient market disciples like Burton Malkiel have to say about these studies.

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-47.2410,244.02
NASDAQ-7.042,159.86
S&P 500-6.071,092.44

Last updated: November 12, 2009: 12:08 PM

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