Does anyone recall that for a couple of months in 1989, the Japanese stock market made up 50% of the value of global share market; that 15 of the 20 most valuable companies in the world, were Japanese? History may not repeat, but it certainly rhymes... Just realised we have

Despite declining 18% over the past decade, platinum demand is forecast to reach its nadir during 2025, after which, consumption will begin to grow steadily. Our model suggests that numerically, diesel vehicles will stabilise at current levels (growth rate ~0.7% pa), with any future declines in percentage terms being

The transition in Europe from diesel vehicles to alternatives started in 2016, before the arrival of the EVs; when it became increasingly clear to the consumer that there were health risks associated with carcinogens and particulate matter – without, we should add, any EU or national government mandate. Our

In a recent missive, we noted that although US profits are growing, they are highly skewed. Outside the top 20 stocks on the S&P 500, EPS has largely been flat, with the bottom 50% strongly negative YTD. Despite that, total market capitalisation has jumped >38% in under a year (red).

Annual global (nonferrous) exploration expenditure from 1996 to 2024f has increased in nominal terms on average by 3.9% pa over the past 29 years.  But if we adjust using US CPI, expenditure in real terms is a far more modest 1.4% CAGR. Despite the fact that the annual production of

We have compared the relative abundances in the most commonly used commodities, by dividing reserves over current production (in years). Collectively, it implies there will soon to be fundamental shortages in four key metals. The majority of silver production is recovered as a by-product of polymetallic sulphide ores, two-thirds

We forecast 2024 EV sales for China, the US, and Europe (collectively, making up ~63% of global vehicles sold) to be ~17m units; up 29% over the pcp. Critically, what this diagram does not show is that the vast majority of this growth is, in fact, via hybrids, not

China accounted for ~58% of global EV sales in 2023. Interestingly, it was the first year that domestic EV manufacturers ran without support from national subsidies (although, some tax exemptions and non-financial support remain in place, temporarily); which may also explain why the Chinese consumer is rapidly transitioning away from battery

New car registrations in the UK in 2023 are identical to that in 2012, despite the overall population growing 9.2%. A large part of the reason, we feel, is price inflation, with the average car price increasing 44% to £41,738 per unit in 2024, whilst national incomes are trailing

Updated actual and projected global car sales out to 2030. Most don't realise that global vehicle sales actually peaked in 2017 and have subsequently declined >21%. In fact, global unit purchases in 2005 and 2022 were largely identical, some 17 years apart. The reason(s) why this decline in demand

Is there such a thing as “Peak Gold”?  Global gold reserves have largely plateaued for 14 years, only increasing over and above what we have mined by 0.6% CAGR (since 1996).  Meaning, despite significant advances in metallurgical technologies, whereby we can extract bullion from multi-element mineral deposits at lower concentrations, improved