At the risk of sounding like a one trick pony ALB US are up by +8.40% just ahead of the open today

What takes my eye at a sector level .

Albemarle Corp ALB US added +5.24% on the regular session yesterday and are up by another +5.23% in the US pre market this morning.

As lithium prices continue to rally see the charts below .

Albemarle was very much a momentum stock prior to Xmas and into the New Year, and its posted 3 new ,5-day highs in the last week, when its gained…[Read more]

The S&P 500 Materials sector stocks, ranked by YTD % change.

Can’t help but notice that Albemarle ALB US have sprung back to life in the last 24 hours as Lithium prices rally by +5.74% . Both the stock and the commodity are well below recent highs, but the signs of life are encouraging and I am inclined to watch them closely from here.

You might have thought that in the midst of a reignited trade war (?) and a crisis of conscious about AI and the future of software, that the data centre frenzy might pause for breath, but not a bit of it.

In fact, analysts at Citi have “refreshed ” their Global Data Centre Industry Model to include recent earnings data, and reports from…[Read more]

Bitcoin knocked off the top spot on Bitpanda…

FTSE 100’s accelerated uptrend to pause?

In today’s The Telegraph business section (Feb 23), one prominent headline screamed: “Britain is biggest loser from Trump’s new tariffs”.

Last week, the Trump administration was dealt a significant blow after the US Supreme Court rejected its Liberation Day tariff plan. Not backing down, the US president…[Read more]

Energy is never far from the news right now, whether its the ever increasing cost of Ed Milibands renewables dream , the seemingly insatiable demand for energy created by AI/ Data centre capex, or the foreign policy of the Trump Whitehouse.

Oil prices are up around +16.0% year to date and there are plenty of bullish signals coming from the…[Read more]

I don’t know if you have checked EWY US the South Korea iShares MSCI ETF recently but you might be quite pleased if you do.

Because they are +3.59% today and by more than 25.0% over the last month .
You may recall that I tipped Korea to out perform the US S&P 500 in 2026 (see the link below).

And though its early days we are of to a good…[Read more]

Allied to those questions about sustainability and renewable energy, here is a link to a very interesting essay on the nature of a business and what it should strive to do ,and who it should try to please? From NYU Stern Business School Professor Aswath…[Read more]

Has the whole renewables energy and sustainability drive been just a sideshow and a colossal waste of time ? looking at his chart and associated comments its hard to think not .

Is cattle meat (‘beef’) about to become more expensive?

The Barron’s cover story (‘The Cattle Crisis: Small Herd, High Prices’) last week highlights the impending crisis in the industry.

You can sense this by just looking at the price chart of Live Cattle.

Prices have been rising non-stop for the last 2-3 years. After a brief consolida…[Read more]

Its a tricky market for fund management companies right now.

At one end of the spectrum we have St James Place which has been disrupted by the emergence of tax and financial planning AI with the stock falling by as much as -13.39%, in a single session 9 days a ago.

At the the other end of the spectrum we have Schroder’s which is the…[Read more]

Outperformance that’s a word that keeps cropping up in my feeds most likely because that’s not what most people and their portfolios are doing right now .

Why is that ? Well put simply they have the wrong positions / exposure tracking the market through an ETFR like SPY, VOO or their European equivalents is a great plan until the stocks that…[Read more]

Is the Japanese Yen about to bounce higher?

Since Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s landslide election win on February 8, the Japanese stock market has soared to all-time highs, bond yields slumped and the Japanese Yen became less weak.

Against the US dollar, the exchange rate has dropped from 157 to 153, extending the broad pattern beneath the c…[Read more]