Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

The Apple vs Microsoft Market Cap Game is So March of 2010
Readings
Commodity Traders: The trillion dollar club | Reuters
Twitter Digest: 2011-10-28

The Apple vs Microsoft Market Cap Game is So March of 2010

Posted: 28 Oct 2011 04:10 PM PDT

The Apple vs Microsoft market capitalization game is so March of 2010.

Aapl msft

Apple Market Cap Chart by YCharts

Readings

Posted: 28 Oct 2011 12:45 PM PDT

A few browser tabs worth sharing:

Sprott on oil (Source)
Government By Numbers: Some Interesting Insights (Source)
Commodity Traders: The trillion dollar club (Source)
How motion capture technology is making movies even worse (Source)

Commodity Traders: The trillion dollar club | Reuters

Posted: 28 Oct 2011 12:17 PM PDT

Probably marks a near-term top in the commodities boom, what with China changes, etc., but highly worth reading piece from Reuters:

For the small club of companies who trade the food, fuels and metals that keep the world running, the last decade has been sensational. Driven by the rise of Brazil, China, India and other fast-growing economies, the global commodities boom has turbocharged profits at the world’s biggest trading houses.

They form an exclusive group, whose loosely regulated members are often based in such tax havens as Switzerland. Together, they are worth over a trillion dollars in annual revenue and control more than half the world’s freely traded commodities. The top five piled up $629 billion in revenues last year, just below the global top five financial companies and more than the combined sales of leading players in tech or telecoms. Many amass speculative positions worth billions in raw goods, or hoard commodities in warehouses and super-tankers during periods of tight supply.

… How big are the biggest trading houses? Put it this way: two of them, Vitol and Trafigura, sold a combined 8.1 million barrels a day of oil last year. That’s equal to the combined oil exports of Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.

Or this: Glencore in 2010 controlled 55 percent of the world’s traded zinc market, and 36 percent of that for copper.

Or this: publicity-shy Vitol’s sales of $195 billion in 2010 were twice those at Apple Inc. As well as the 200 tankers it has at sea, Vitol owns storage tanks on five continents.

via Commodity Traders: The trillion dollar club | Reuters.

Twitter Digest: 2011-10-28

Posted: 28 Oct 2011 12:00 PM PDT

Snowy mountains, cloudless skies & crisp temps: Boulder CO was seriously showing off at 7am this morning. #
If just wish I could convince more people in airports to chew gum, especially with their mouth hanging open. Mooo. #
Just watched someone spend a 1 hr flight trying to connect to Southwest wifi using Win XP. Trying to decide which part of that is most mad. #
Final travel peeve of day: The fussbudgets Southwest boarders that think wedging in between A33 and A35 is a good use of time. #
Am told by someone who had a client at Groupon roadshow lunch in Boston yest that it was "insane", "standing room only". #
There are "Risk On" days and there are "RISK ON" days. This is the latter. #
Remember that colleague of mine I mentioned here a while ago who thinks market's path of most pain is 20-30% higher? He still thinks that. #
Tried to get jazzed about Microsoft's vision of the future. Didn't. http://t.co/I4Ag9U8W #
That Microsoft video of the future strikes me as Bladerunner re-shot by a germophobe. #
NBA Chemistry: Positive and Negative Synergies in Basketball – http://t.co/oHd06t2L #
What is the point of lie-flat biz class airline seats where you have to un-lie-flat to let the person beside you out? #
Whingers of the world, unite: Positive words carry less information than negative wordshttp://arxiv.org/abs/1110.4123 #
Good Matt Taibbi post on Occupy Wall Street – http://t.co/N6hsJlMe #
The cult of Jurassic Park, and its event of the year – http://t.co/TOi8Etro #
Whingers of the world, unite: Positive words carry less information than negative words – http://t.co/e0aVE4Hw #
The Penalty Shot/Optional Minor Choice in Ice Hockey – http://t.co/5PtF6kcU #
Great new data showing collapse of geographic mobility in the U.S. – http://t.co/G35pJGor /cc @Richard_Florida #
The iPhone-ification of SLRs – http://t.co/tv2BquZX #
Chefs@Google: Anthony Bourdain – http://t.co/h9rM4ROl #
Niall Ferguson's metamorphoses tell us more than does his writings – http://t.co/oenTkL5H #