Cocoa prices have dumped since rocketing to a dramatic peak last month as an El Nino cycle winds down and traders rush out of the illiquid market. For now, depreciating fiat currencies are still keeping the cocoa price still far above its 2023 levels. Coffee has had a similar rise and subsequent correction — but now, inflation and other factors are conspiring to brew a pot of strong fuel for more upward price action in markets for the world’s other favorite bean.
Decades of negative interest rate policy in Japan have ended. That could mean the end of the $20 trillion “yen carry trade,” once one of the most popular trades on foreign exchange markets, and a chain reaction in the global economy. The yen carry trade is when investors borrow yen to buy assets denominated in higher-yielding foreign currencies, like the USD, where interest rates are higher.
While the total annihilation of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore probably isn’t a “Black Swan” big enough to trigger a global collapse, it adds potent fuel to several fires in an already fragile global economy.
