Business - FT.com

Since last summer, cereals - in particular wheat and corn - have become synonymous with rising prices as the cost of both crops escalated to record highs.

The Icelandic krona is likely to remain under pressure in spite of improved confidence in the country's banking sector, says Ulrich Leuchtmann, strategist at Commerzbank.

How deep and long will the current economic malaise be? How malignant is the stress in the financial system (aka the credit crunch) and how does it interact with the macro-economy?

It is time to take profits on emerging market equities following a 12 per cent gain since the end of January, says Jonathan Garner, analyst at Morgan Stanley.

We were standing in downtown Kaiserslautern, West Germany, in 1990 when Professor P, from my undergraduate school, offered me the last piece of advice he ever gave me: "Don't go to any of the sex shops here. They'll rip you off."

There are mixed signals for the global economy. Inflation is rising at a time of global slowdown.

Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM), the biggest buyer of US mortgages, this week demonstrated why it is the elephant in the room when it comes to the ranks of financial institutions deemed too big to fail.

Transport companies run on oil, and lots of it. High oil prices are bad for them. But the market does not appear to believe this.

Asia has so far proved fairly resilient to the US subprime crisis although policymakers in the region will face an increasingly bumpy ride ahead, says Tehmina Khan at Capital Economics.

In sports, a W is better than an L. The same should be true in markets but a W does offer more opportunities to lose as well as make money.

China's policy mix, with its artificially low exchange rate, huge current account surplus, burgeoning reserves and consequent excess liquidity, looks tailor-made to generate asset price bubbles. But was the recent boom and bust in the Shanghai stock market really a case of bubble behaviour?

Elon called the other day and said: "I just got out of jail. They locked me up for 30 hours. I'm a mess."

What with the collapse of the leveraged loan market, introduction of Basel II, increased pressure on balance sheets, the rising cost of capital and the increased cost of funding, difficulties with the accuracy of Libor - the London interbank offered rate - is a problem the banks can do without.

I love the price/earnings ratio, but like all investment tools, it is flawed. This is because it is only as good as the numbers that go into it.

Big oil was back in the spotlight this week and not just because petrol prices hit £5 a gallon on the forecourts. BP and Royal Dutch Shell both reported first-quarter results that smashed market forecasts and then enjoyed sharp share price gains.

Ben Bernanke's Federal Reserve is supposedly more transparent than the Fed of Alan Greenspan. And, we were led to believe, the era of rate cuts that began amid last August's credit crisis would end with Wedneday's rate cut, which brought the Fed Funds rate down to 2 per cent. (It peaked at 5.25 per cent).

Who has benefited most from the period of monetary easing that the Federal Reserve started last August? For investors, there is a surprising but clear answer: Latin America.

A decade back, the public perception of the agriculture industry was one of subsidies, trade distortions and rigged markets. More recently, public awareness has focused on concerns over food security, price inflation and shortages.

What got us into our financial pickle? Most academics are prisoners of the Efficient Market Hypothesis that assumes man acts rationally and efficiently in economic matters in ways that can be caught in elegant mathematical models. Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, shares this view completely, and Alan Greenspan, his predecessor, when it suits him. In such a convenient world, there can be no bubbles and no crashes. ...

Pop quiz: what is the difference between a Republican millionaire and a Democrat millionaire? Answer: a rosy outlook on the US economy.

Some argue that there is a bubble in commodity markets because prices remain strong even as US economic conditions worsen and credit markets tighten.

We all make mistakes, even if our names are Buffett or Soros. But when great investors such as Warren Buffett and George Soros make a mistake, the lessons for the rest of us are so much more interesting.

"This time it's different". Four words guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of stock market professionals.

The solid bounce in global equities from their lows of mid-March is reaching a crucial stage. Soon we may discover whether recent gains are sustainable or nothing more than a classic bear market rally.

Recent tumult in the emerging markets invites the question: are they emerging or submerging markets?

Even before Royal Bank of Scotland, Britain's second-biggest bank, admitted it was considering a cash call to shore up its creaking balance sheet, strategists had been predicting the return of the rights issue.

Spring finally arrived in New York this week, and the sunny mood transcended another round of big banking writedowns and higher loan loss provisions.

Earlier this week, I asked a senior executive of one of the world's most troubled investment banks when he had first grasped the meaning of the phrase "super-senior." Sheepishly, he admitted that the moment was last August.