Ned W Schmidt CFA's Contributions

The inevitable just seems to keep coming around. That over time food would become scarcer in our world has been well known for decades. Simply put, global demand for food continues to expand. The inevitable scarcity of food for the world is...

Is US inflation setup to upset the markets? Motivation for considering this question begins with graph to right. Plotted in that chart is the year-to-year percentage change for the median US CPI. That measure is calculated monthly...

Last we visited on Agri-Foods the concept of Peak Food was introduced. That shift in the fundamentals of global food production was identified as adding support to Agri-Commodity prices. For despite the negative sentiment on...

Your high-tech toy watch won’t buy you an egg. To date, the U.S. is on course to destroy 40,721,073 birds, mainly laying hens. Yes, elves at USDA do like precision in their numbers. Those birds are the casualty...

Imagine you could go back in time so you could buy some investment at a bargain. Many might also wish to go back in time to sell something. But, let us stick with the idea of returning to an earlier time to buy some asset...

Markets often do talk to us, if only we would listen. Our ears serve as only part of listening. An open mind is also required. Regrettably, minds receptive to new thoughts and questions have been somewhat outmoded in the investment world for many years. Why else do so many seem to ignore what commodities are saying?

...how long does it take the Street to identify an elephant in the room? Apparently the answer to that question is a time period longer than should be the case. As portrayed in the chart below, Agri-Food prices have been rising fairly dramatically thus far this year.

The Agri-Food Price Index hit an all time record high for the week ended 7 March. This index of Agri-Food prices is rather comprehensive in that it includes sixteen(16) important Agri-Commodities. That index is plotted in the chart below which covers the past almost two years.

One of our greatest fears is being forced, for economic reasons, to consume dry, boneless, skinless, tasteless chicken breasts. Beef is the proper food for people, not the meat of something that when free range raised pecks in the dirt.

As we to prepare for the arrival of a new year, 2014 for those not keeping track, we should take time to consider reality. One part of that is to reconsider some well grounded advice: Past performance does not predict future performance.