It seems as though wherever one looks, soaring prices are in the news. Everything from the rising price of lumber to oil, to housing, to food is dominating headlines. This week, key inflation data was released…

As the year draws to a close, most financial market players like to project themselves forward and attempt to figure out what challenges, or surprises, the upcoming year may have in store. The aim of this piece is to do precisely the opposite: instead of looking forward, I propose to look backwards at the important changes of the past year.

Winter came a few months early last week, as Snowflake (SNOW) had a highly successful Initial Public Offering, rising over 111% from its offering price in its first day of trading to a cool market cap of $67.4B. 

My close friend and partner Louis Gave, whom I’ve known for 13 years, is the furthest thing from a gold bug.  In fact, for most of the time I’ve known him he’s had a dim view of the shiny metal often derisively referred to as a “barbarous relic” or a “pet rock”.

In the second quarter of this year, global equity markets registered their best quarterly performance in two decades. What was behind this record-breaking rebound? A number of explanations appeared possible.