Enslave
Profiteer
Rule
Don’t go there!
Perhaps ironically, one of the most famous 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse paintings is by a Russian:
- Pestilence (on a White Horse -> COVID !?)
- War (on a Red Horse -> PUTIN !?)
- Famine (on a Black Horse -> HYPERINFLATION !?)
- Death (on a Pale Horse -> TOO LATE !?)
- Meduza
- DW
- Ahead
Ukraine will not agree to any demands from Vladimir Putin to cut its army by five times, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
We still can’t quite believe it, but it really happened: Meduza’s promo campaign hit the streets of some of Europe’s largest capitals. On January 16 and 17, projections about us and our work lit up buildings in busy neighborhoods of Berlin, Paris, and London. Take a look through this gallery to relive the moment (and don’t miss the surprise at the end!).
On January 26, Belarus will hold its presidential vote — the first since August 2020, when the country experienced its largest protests and harshest crackdown on dissent in modern history. Over the past four and a half years, tens of thousands of Belarusians have been arrested, interrogated, beaten, fined, convicted, or pushed out of their jobs, while hundreds of thousands more have fled the country. Aleksandr Lukashenko, still seemingly haunted by the events of 2020, is taking every possible measure to prevent a repeat that could threaten his hold on power. Meduza reports on the state of Belarus ahead of the “election.”
In May 2023, Russian activist Evgeny Mashinin arrived in the U.S., where he planned to seek asylum after facing multiple arrests back home for participating in pro-democracy and anti-war protest rallies. He appeared to have a solid case: the European Court of Human Rights had even awarded him thousands of euros for his detentions. However, the U.S. judge hearing his case denied his request — and ordered his deportation back to Russia, where he was soon arrested yet again.
Ukraine’s Security Service and State Bureau of Investigation reported the arrest of two generals and a colonel on suspicion of negligence, which allegedly allowed Russian forces to capture parts of the Kharkiv region in May 2024.
2025.01.18
After a topsy-turvy 2024, with spot copper vacillating from $5.10 a pound on May 20 to $3.89 on Aug. 5, the industrial metal is catching a break early in 2025.
Year to date, copper is up 3%, the price increase driven mostly by market expectations that the Trump administration will slowly ramp up tariffs rather than imposing sizeable levies in one go.
Source: Kitco
According to Bloomberg, The approach is aimed at boosting negotiating leverage and avoiding a spike in inflation, according to people familiar with the matter.
Continue reading Kodiak Copper starting resource estimate – Richard Mills at Ahead of the Herd.
2025.01.16
Critical minerals have become the new frontline of the rivalry between the two superpowers.
As America gets set to receive Donald Trump as its 47th President — inauguration day is Jan. 20 — a chill has settled over US trade relations, as Trump takes an adversarial approach to long-time trade allies like Canada and Mexico. The president-elect has made outlandish suggestions of making Canada the 51st state, taking back the Panama Canal and of annexing Greenland, a key defensive outpost against Russia in the Arctic, and the biggest island in the world rich in minerals like rare earths and nickel needed to power the new economy.
Continue reading The coming critical minerals trade war – Richard Mills at Ahead of the Herd.
2025.01.08
Gold prices notched a series of highs in 2024 and the run could extend into 2025. “Investors are optimistic about gold and silver for 2025 because they are so pessimistic on geopolitics and government debt,” said Adrian Ash, director of research at BullionVault, via CNBC.
The news site said market participants will be keeping an eye on further China stimulus, in hopes that it may fuel a recovery in commodities demand in the world’s second-largest economy.
Continue reading AOTH companies and metals roundup – Richard Mills at Ahead of the Herd.
From Ancient Origins
How and when did dinosaurs first emerge and spread across the planet more than 200 million years ago? That question has for decades been a source of debate among paleontologists faced with fragmented fossil records. The mainstream view has held that the reptiles emerged on the southern portion of the ancient supercontinent Pangea, called Gondwana, millions of years before spreading to the northern half, named Laurasia.
But now, a newly described dinosaur whose fossils were uncovered by University of Wisconsin–Madison paleontologists is challenging that narrative, with evidence that the reptiles were present in the northern hemisphere millions of years earlier than previously known.
From Citizen Watch Report
The silver market is experiencing a significant uptick in demand, primarily driven by technological advancements in key sectors, notably the burgeoning field of solid-state batteries. These batteries are seen not just as the future of electric vehicles (EVs) but also as a game-changer in energy storage solutions due to their superior safety, energy density, and longevity compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries.
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Mandela’s Kiss Endures
The 2024 Global Elections Super-Cycle
Stay tuned for continuous updates on elections around the world. Click on a country for the latest elections data and analysis.
- Number of national elections to be held in 2024 18 of 68
- Overall turnout (based on registered voters) 63%
- Total number of ballots cast in 18 elections 467,094,737
Pulled conclusions from pooled data compilations
Using some of the world’s largest companies by market cap & some of the most quoted indices + two most sung alternatives: data for this millennia where available
- At 134x, Apple is the absolute stock price growth winner; with Amazon at 45x and Google at 32x
- Despite the lack of interest or dividends, gold at 6.6x looks good compared to any other stock or index!
- Barrick Gold on the other hand seems to be poorly correlated to anything including the gold metal itself!?
- But Barrick is the only stock producing negative correlations with most of the indices including a relatively high -0.77 with the Euronext100 index
- If one wast trying to get something totally uncorrelated on purpose- it would be hard to beat: gold and the Euronext100 index at -0.03; or Barrick and the Hang Seng index at 0.04; or gold and Merck at 0.16; or BTC and the FTSE index at 0.19
- Correlation against a basket of indices & alternatives is best in Disney and Google (0.81-0.82), albeit at different growth multiples
- If an average historical P/E is somewhere in the 20x range, then the current S&P quoted average which is in high 30s is as warned high, BUT: only Amazon and Visa seem to be widely out of range (justified by growth in online transactions?), with many below current & historical averages
- In the current world of no interest & no inflation, maybe the higher P/E averages are justified..? For how long, that is a different question…
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