The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

Something is very wrong with my country. Something big and something bad.  We can all feel it, though we might not agree on what is actually wrong.  The great institutions of state are falling apart. Mighty institutions that I grew up trusting for their integrity, respected around the world, seem to be crumbling amidst incompetence, incoherence, corruption and more. The government, essentially une...

There has been a discernible change in the narrative over the past few weeks regarding Covid-19 vaccines. From the Andrew Bridgen affair and questions in the House of Commons regarding the unusually high seasonal death rates to the publicity that came with “Novacc” Djokovic winning the Australian Open, to the sudden collapse of Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha, daughter of the King, and the resu...

There are just three ways, I once heard someone say, to create real wealth: * You make stuff * You mine stuff * You grow stuff Everything else is just redistribution - pushing what is already there around. We can argue about whether offering a service is “making stuff”. I would say, generally, it is. I’ve always loved that as a maxim by which to view things. Pretty much all wealth creation comes u...

Gold had an epic bull market in the noughties - I still remember the key numbers like it was yesterday. There was the low in 1999 at $250/oz, marked for all eternity by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, as he sold off two-thirds of British gold at the bottom of the market, when there were no compelling need to sell. That low was re-tested in 2001 and we got a classic double bottom, follow...

It’s that time of year once again when I get out my crystal ball and tell you exactly what is going to happen in this the Year of our Lord 2023 (here’s how I performed last year ).    You can normally rely on your intrepid author to have strong, even if wrong opinions on markets, but I must confess to not feeling as strongly about things as I usually do.  My biggest concern is how Chat GPT - the n...

Later this week I’ll be posting my predictions for 2023, but first we revisit my predictions for 2022 to see how I got on. This is more an exercise in entertainment than anything else because, in case you needed reminding, risk management changes - and so do forecasts - as events unfold. As Mr Keynes once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”  So when you leap back a yea...

This is a podcast recorded with director Alex McCarron , following a comment he made to me in the pub the other day, when I asked “Where is this all going?”. “South Africa,” came the reply. Indeed. We are witnessing the South Africanisation of everything. Here’s a link to the the YouTube video , Science Must Fall, Alex mentioned in the discussion. And here is the follow-up article: Have you got yo...

I’ve been playing with a new technology this week, which, I think, is as potentially transformative as Google’s search engine, Facebook’s network or Apple’s iPhone. It’s that significant.  Elon Musk says it’s “scary good”; Google management is so worried about it they have issued a “code red”; and it has achieved in just five days what took Netflix three and a half years.  And it’s going to put me...

I stumbled across a Gavekal Research Daily Comment over the weekend with a really interesting table that I thought we could discuss today. Gavekal Research, if you don’t know it, is a financial research firm that provides analysis and insights on global economies, markets and industries. It was founded in 1999 by Charles Gave, Anatole Kaletsky, and Louis-Vincent Gave, and is headquartered in Hong...

Before we get started today, I just wanted to flag two articles from last week. First, my special report on helium . And, second, Dr John’s latest on bonds . Both for paying subscribers, there is lots of valuable info to be had, so please check them out. So to today’s piece … Every December Saxobank puts out ten outrageous predictions for the year ahead. It does not claim that these predictions wi...

What are you getting people for Christmas this year? I have the solution. Forgive me for going full salesman, but read on and you’ll see why I do that. This is life mission stuff. First, there are all sorts of goodies in the Dominic Frisby shop , which I think you may like. We have CDs of all my various albums, the latest (and probably best yet) being Gammon and Proud. Digital versions are also av...

Some interesting developments in the murky world of geopolitics to report on this week, as the currency wars heat up. WWIII has already started. So says US economist Pippa Malgrem, who was Special Assistant to US President George Bush for Economic Policy and a former member of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets. “We are in a hot war in cold places: Space, Cyberspace, Underwater, an...

Today we consider the coldest substance on earth. Which is? I knew you knew.  Liquid helium.  I have been covering helium for several years now, and it’s time to revisit the theme today. The reason? I keep reading articles about helium shortages (and these have nothing to do with the controversial cryptocurrency of the same name). Bull markets come along every few years in some niche but strategic...

This was supposed to go out to one and all last week, but for some reason it didn’t. So today we try again - and the article can also be the Sunday morning thought piece. What problem does bitcoin solve? How does it make the world better? Merryn posted those questions on Twitter yesterday. It being Twitter, as you might expect, as well some measured, sensible stuff, it met with a barrage of outrag...

You can read an update to this article here . Over the last year, I’ve lost over 2 stone - 14kg or 30lb, to be precise. I say over the last year, truth is I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to lose weight for three years - in fact, since practically forever. Given that most of us want to be somewhat lighter than we are, I thought I’d share my experiences with you today. They may be of some use. Bac...

I’m delighted to report that The Flying Frisby is now a Substack Bestseller. Thank you to everyone who supports this bestselling publication! By popular demand, today we consider bitcoin - and the amazing story that is FTX. Gosh, this is some story - it’s difficult to know where to start. The more you dig in, the more that comes out. It’s a cautionary tale of the madness that engulfs crowds during...

A number of people have asked me to cover bitcoin after this week’s insanity - and I will very soon, I promise, but today we consider fossil fuels once again. While the oil and natural gas prices have not done a great deal these last six months - up a bit, down a bit, then sideways - the associated companies have done very well: the producers, the service companies and so on. Many years of bear ma...

Today’s missive comes to you from the Galapagos Islands out in the eastern Pacific, where two stories of noble energy initiatives reflect the broader realities of energy policy around the world.  We tell these stories with a specific question in mind: how much gas, so to speak, is left in the tank of this energy bull market? The Galapagos population is only around 30,000, but, as a fully functioni...

The highest form of charity, argued the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, is when the help given enables the receiver to become self- sufficient. But our systems of state charity - aka welfare - have too frequently had the opposite effect: they have actually created dependency. It is time to re-think the way we help people. I suggest something that may be heinous to some, but it’s this:...

Money evolves constantly.  Every day there is some tiny new fintech development, but it’s only when you take a step back and look at the ten-, twenty- or thirty-year  picture that you realise just how much things have changed.  What is money today is a far cry from what was money when I was a child. Digital technology barely existed back then. We used cash and these things called cheques. You’ve p...

Here at the New Orleans Investment Conference, I met up with veteran geologist and mining newsletter writer Brent Cook of Exploration Insights together with not-so-veteran, but equally on-it investor Kai Hoffmann of SF Capital. What followed is a 20-minute chat about the state of the mining markets. Those of you that are interested in the state of mining - enjoy! This is a public episode. If you'd...

Back in the 90s, when we were in our 20s, all my university buddies and I wanted to do was travel. We wanted to go everywhere and see the world.  The problem was how to pay for it. My solution was to work all year, save up, then, having spent Christmas with my folks, get a flight somewhere on Boxing Day or the day after (flights were always cheap then) and come back at the end of January. The busi...

I was listening to an interview the other day with entrepreneur Balaji Srinivasan, in which he argued that there are two ways by which you can raise capital: one is through investment, the other is through charity. If you are raising capital through investment, the incentive is to demonstrate strength, competence, ability, prowess, honesty and many such other qualities. The more competence you dem...

Today we turn our attention to the physical gold markets. There is, as veteran dealer Ross Norman of Metals Daily puts it, a “disconnect between the gold price and what is happening in the physical markets.” “Our biggest challenge,” says Joshua Saul of the Pure Gold Company, “is finding enough stock on a daily basis to sell. There is a long line of demand, but very little supply. There’s more dema...

I stumbled across this 2013 blog earlier today. I’m posting it because I thought you might enjoy it, and partly because it’s relevant to a thought piece I’ve been working on that I’ll be posting later in the week Ooh, what fun There's nothing surer The rich get rich and the poor get poorer Peggy Lee Most of us now enjoy luxuries that would have been unheard of a hundred years ago - running water,...