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The Retired Investor: Food Faces Escalating Prices
By Bill Schmick,
04:18PM / Thursday, October 29, 2020

It has been a long time coming. Commodities have been in the doghouse for years, but a combination of events are conspiring to lift the prices of soft commodities much higher.

A definition of soft commodities refers to future contracts of substances that are grown, rather than extracted or mined. We know them best as food and fiber commodities, such as wheat or lumber.    Shortages are occurring in everything from soybeans to wheat and it is not just in the United States. Readers might immediately think to blame the pandemic for this trend. You would be only partially correct. At the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, the hoarding of food in certain areas of the world

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@theMarket: Politicians Play Cat & Mouse With Investors
By Bill Schmick,
07:58PM / Friday, October 23, 2020
It was a week of will they, or won't they. Both parties claimed to want another stimulus deal done before the election, but the proof is in the pudding and as of Friday, the plate is empty.   Investors may be coming to the conclusion that the latest negotiations between the Democrats, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Republican U.S. Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was simply an election ploy. A way to set up the other side for failure, while making their own position look both caring and, at the same time, blameless. Both sides already knew that the GOP-controlled Senate had no appetite for another bail-out

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@theMarket: Investors Reduce Risk as Stimulus Talks Fail
By Bill Schmick,
03:27PM / Friday, October 16, 2020
Hope springs eternal, but even the most strident bulls threw in the towel this week. American politics took precedence over the country's economic well-being once again, as both political parties refused to compromise on a stimulus deal.   But it wasn't only politics that spooked investors. Across the Atlantic, investors watched as COVID-19 outbreaks escalated across Europe. Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Italy reported new records in infections, while France announced a curfew in order to stem their own skyrocketing cases. In the U.K., Londoners are now banned from mixing with other households indoors.   In this country, despite denials by a

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The Retired Investor: China Leads Global Economic Recovery
By Bill Schmick,
04:30PM / Thursday, October 15, 2020

There is a saying on Wall Street, "first in, first out," which aptly describes the experience of the world's second-largest economy this year. The coronavirus was spawned in Wuhan, China late last year, but thanks to the country's quick response, China has sprung back stronger than ever.

By almost any economic measure, China has not only managed to avoid a recession this year, but will actually see its GDP grow by 1.6 percent in 2020. To put that growth in perspective, the world's economy is expected to decline by 4.4 percent this year.   The startling Chinese recovery in the face of ongoing pandemic problems throughout the rest of the world, can be

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@theMarket: One way or Another, Markets Expect More Stimulus
By Bill Schmick,
07:32PM / Friday, October 09, 2020
As the U.S. presidential elections approach, politics are becoming a bigger factor in what is moving the stock market. Some investors are already betting on the winner, and positioning their portfolios for an expected outcome. It is a risky bet to make.   As of this week, many on Wall Street are positioning for what they expect will be a "Blue Wave" where both houses of Congress and the next presidency of the United States will be captured by the Democratic Party. What, you may ask, is their reasoning, aside from partisanship?    Well, the number of polls that put Joe Biden in a widening lead, for one thing, as well as waning support for

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