Consilient Investor > Themes & Trends
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| Safe Harbors & New Frontiers The original Taipans were fearless Scottish and English traders who built their fortunes linking Europe and the Far East. Just as those bold traders saw vast fortunes to be made, there are new ones to be made in emerging markets... |
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| Fortune Building 101 In studying the great investment fortunes, and the great investors behind them, it is natural to wonder just how the dough was made. What follows is a recap of some of the basic strategies used in the past to amass serious wealth. |
Digging into ETFs Exchange Traded Funds, or ETFs, have exploded in popularity the past few years. In this primer we take a closer look at ETFs -- what they are, why they are so popular, and a few ways they can be put to use in a portfolio. |
| Walking Backwards Like the ancient Greeks, the wise investor is a student of history. The practical value of history falls under two broad categories: exploitable patterns and avoidable mistakes. Two enduring aspects of market history are time frames and behavior cycles... |
A Healthy Glow Three large-scale factors have turned the tide in favor of nuclear energy: geopolitics, global warming, and developing world growth. The rise of safe, clean nuclear power is in most everyone's best interest... except the petrocrats who want to keep the world as addicted to fossil fuels as possible. |
| It Takes Energy To Make Energy The answer to the question "Does Peak Oil Matter" is still a clear and definitive YES. just not in the direct fashion that most people assume. Canada's oil sands offer a nice illustration as to why this is true. Just as it takes money to make money, it takes energy to make energy. |
Stacking Hay Bales The first accounting systems were probably tied to crop dealings. After that, it was just a matter of getting more sophisticated at building and burning things... Man greatly extended his domain by learning to consume energy he did not create. In financial terms, he has accomplished a similar thing. |
| Exxon's Folly In an interview with Barron's, oil industry veteran Charley Maxwell marveled at Exxon Mobil's 'remarkable' complacency. To understand his line of thinking -- and why Exxon could be in major trouble -- consider the energy industry from a big picture perspective. |
The Rodney Dangerfield of Fossil Fuels As far as the public is concerned, coal is the Rodney Dangerfield of fossil fuels -- it gets no respect. In terms of our daily lives, coal is almost wholly out of sight and out of mind. And yet, if anything, today's world relies on coal more than ever before. |
| Natural High Natural gas consumption is expected to rise more than 20 percent over the next few decades. Natural gas for electric power generation is expected to rise by more than 60 percent. Yet for all the steady rise in demand, production has been nearly flat for quite some time now. |
Mind the Gap "Mind the gap" is internationally recognized as a London expression. From our perspective, minding the gap is also good advice regarding the challenges of globalization. In the West, there is a growing divide between haves and have-nots; in the developing world, rumbles of exploitation. |
| Sun, Wind & Surf Wouldn't it be nice if we could surf our way to energy independence from fossil fuels? The basic ingredients of a good wave aren't hard to guess -- wind, water, and sun. There are interesting developments taking place in all three areas. |
Infrastructure Arbitrage Imagine a magic gas station with fuel tanks that never run dry. Now imagine that this magic gas station has to serve thousands of cars from a single island of pumps. It doesn't matter that the tanks are bottomless. The problem is distribution. |
| Devil & the Deep Blue Sea Picture it: You are a top-level security adviser to the president of the United States. The issue at hand is whether or not to attack Iran, by military means or otherwise, in a last-ditch effort to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons... |
Panem Et Circenses We may not be reliving the last days of Ancient Rome, but it sure feels like it. If Juvenal were here, he'd be quoting Yogi Berra -- "Déjà vu all over again." But why are the parallels so striking? And seemingly so ubiquitous? |
| Raymond's Wager Like his 17th century predecessor, Blaise Pascal, the modern-day energy CEO weights consequences above probabilities. The key thing is that, when it comes down to brass tacks, the reward-to-risk profile for a gargantuan oil major is not what one might expect. |
China's Date with Destiny, Part V: Knowledge & Technology Transfer For the big multinationals, investing in China is a schizophrenic enterprise. Dreams of huge profits are balanced against piracy nightmares, soul crushing competition, and razor thin margins. This is exactly how China likes it. |
| China's Date with Destiny, Part IV: Building Regional Ties Before the dragon can dominate the world, it has to ensure solidarity in its own neighborhood. Still a military weakling in comparison to the United States, China's strategy is to spread largesse, emphasize diplomacy, and highlight the intrusive elements of American might. |
China's Date with Destiny, Part III: Ensuring Energy Security First, China will develop strategic ties with key energy producers who prefer an alternative to the "Bush doctrine" of the United States. Second, China will invest in local production and alternative energy sources that reduce reliance on imports over time. |
| China's Date with Destiny, Part II: Ensuring Food Security When a nation collectively endures a traumatic event, the result is a psychological scar on the people's psyche. Given the painful memories of Mao's Great Famine, is it any wonder China is obsessed with food security? |
China's Date with Destiny, Part I: The Four Considerations As investors, we ignore China's destiny at our peril. Whether we see China as friend or foe is irrelevant; what is certain is that China's strategic actions, and the resulting reactions, will dramatically alter the global landscape. |
| China's internal risks... and why all roads lead to gold As China manages its relations and lays the groundwork for future plans, there are a number of internal risks Beijing must consider. any one of which could wreak havoc. In the end, all of China's roads lead to gold. Here we shall examine why. |
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