Volatility in the U.S. stock market has been extreme in the past few years. The following chart shows the 5-year chart for the VIX index: Click to enlarge Source: Yahoo Finance After peaking in late 2008, the fear index started to moderate until the middle of this year after which it has spiked again due …
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Natural Gas is increasingly becoming an important fuel in meeting the global energy needs. In this post, let us take a quick look at the largest natural gas fields in the world. Eastern Europe and Eurasia have the largest known natural gas resources, which are concentrated in the countries of the former Soviet Union. The …
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Most investors are currently avoiding European banks due to the myriads of issues facing the whole banking industry. It is almost impossible to evaluate a bank’s balance sheet since there are many known unknowns. Austria’s Erste Bank (EBKDY) is a classic example of this scenario. Just when investors, including myself, thought that the worst was …
Russia is a resource-rich nation and the hence the vast majority of Russian exports are fuels, metals and minerals. The country is one of the largest exporters of crude oil and natural gas with Europe being the primary market. The following graphic shows the top export and import markets for Russia: Click to enlarge …
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The four giant U.S. banks – Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) – hold billions of dollars in assets. However bigger is not always better in the banking industry. Though the big banks have the full support of the U.S. government to bail them out if they run …
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