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geoffreysambrook
Nov 26, 2014
Boom and Busts
“All political lives…end in failure”, wrote controversial British politician Enoch Powell in his biography of Joseph Chamberlain. You...
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geoffreysambrook
Nov 19, 2014
The Rise of the RMB; Are We Prepared?
For those who have been around for a while, the day when the pricing of London Metal Exchange (LME) contracts switched from UK sterling...
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geoffreysambrook
Nov 12, 2014
Getting to Grips with the Numbers
It seems as though the media had almost forgotten about the debt and deficit until very recently. They have been waxing lyrical of course...
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geoffreysambrook
Nov 5, 2014
How Glasenberg did the Right Thing in Zambia
It was possibly one of Glencore’s better deals – to buy the Mufulira and Nkana operations of ZCCM from the Zambian Government at...
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geoffreysambrook
Oct 29, 2014
Manipulations, Corners and Crashes
This morning, I read the obituary of Nelson Bunker Hunt. (London papers are clearly a little behind the times, since he actually died a...
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geoffreysambrook
Oct 22, 2014
Staring into the Abyss
This being LME Dinner Week, I have been quite occupied. Richard Horswill has kindly stepped in to write this article (the first half of a...
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geoffreysambrook
Oct 15, 2014
Marketing – Who Needs It?
I hear a whisper from a substantial mining house to the effect that they are considering whether or not it would make sense for them to...
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geoffreysambrook
Oct 8, 2014
And Now the Criminal Indictments….
A New Jersey-based trader was indicted last Thursday in Chicago on charges of manipulating commodities markets. It is alleged that...
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geoffreysambrook
Oct 1, 2014
The Times, They are a-Changin'
If you look at the world today, lots of it looks pretty chaotic. Violent insurgency is changing the face of the Middle East, making a...
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geoffreysambrook
Sep 24, 2014
Where Have all the Buyers Gone?
It doesn’t all seem to have gone as planned, this summer. Anybody else remember the euphoria about rampant nickel prices a few months...
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geoffreysambrook
Sep 17, 2014
Activity During the Dog Days
The ‘Dog Days’ of summer are traditionally the period of sultry weather experienced in Europe in July and August. Originally a Roman...
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geoffreysambrook
Sep 10, 2014
Miss-selling: a Problem of Product or Process?
I guess it would be nigh-on impossible now to find anybody who would speak in favour of the quaint concept of lending money to people who...
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geoffreysambrook
Sep 3, 2014
Blue Plaques and Chaim Herzog
Back in the nineteenth century, London pioneered a practice of putting blue plaques on the walls of buildings where significant people...
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geoffreysambrook
Aug 20, 2014
"Like the Fix, but with an Algorithm as Chairman"
“It’s similar to the Fix, but with an algorithm in place of the Chairman.” “It’s another sign of the dehumanisation of financial...
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geoffreysambrook
Aug 13, 2014
Seeing Through Other Eyes – 1914, 2014
A few days ago was the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of the first World War. For anyone who cocks even half an eye to...
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geoffreysambrook
Aug 6, 2014
Banker Bonus Clawback – Why so Selective?
I normally steer well clear of issues related to politics on this site, but I thought it may be interesting to look at the latest round...
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geoffreysambrook
Jul 30, 2014
Benchmarks and Reference Prices
The topic du jour amongst the forensic element of the financial community, if I judge by the number of requests for explanations and...
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geoffreysambrook
Jul 23, 2014
When QE was Privatised….
In 1916, an impoverished, partly-trained engineer called Alves Reis, son of an undertaker and with a new young wife, left his native...
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geoffreysambrook
Jul 16, 2014
Banks: Living with Them, Living without Them
The departure of several high-profile banks from the metal trading business has been welcomed in some quarters – indeed my own view is...
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geoffreysambrook
Jul 9, 2014
The Invisible Piano Player
Here, where I am staying at The Celebrity City Hotel in Chengdu, the sun never shines. Or rather it shines, but cannot be seen. The sun...
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