BUSINESS, FEATURED STORY

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my twenty plus years of market-watching it is that markets hate uncertainty. Uncertainty breeds volatility and volatility usually prefaces a panic.

The economies of Russia and China are far more complementary than is assumed in the West. A great deal more investment on both sides would be required to take proper advantage of that potential, but the resources and political will to apply them clearly exist.

Markets are worrying about the consequences for global trade – and US corporate earnings – were the current Cold War to deepen: i.e. that the roulette ball does not happen to land on ‘red’.

As the world becomes more dependent on high-tech and an “Internet of things,” the economic war for control of rare earth minerals will increase.

Big energy suppliers are able to move away from political marginalization and enter the mainstream arena of international politics. In our era, energy protagonists will also play the leads in the drama of geopolitics.

In any aristocracy, some members need to make compromises with other members, no matter how united they all are against the publics’ interests.