Contrarian trading for independent thinkers

More pain to come before we beat the bug Hi The good news is that, according to Bloomberg... “China could be just days away from declaring it has no new cases” of coronavirus. That’s if we believe State figures, of course. Since the start of the virus story, official...

In the last ten years, many in Britain have fallen foul of a dangerous new addiction: opioids. These painkillers – such as fentanyl and oxycotin – have become an increasingly important way to treat chronic pain. The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals,...

Each year the World Health Organisation updates the list of diseases that could cause pandemics. This list includes fevers like Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa; encephalitic viruses like MERS, SARS, and Nipah. It includes vector-borne diseases like Rift Valley fever, and...

Conditions are ripe for an ‘explosive’ move higher in the gold price. One that will make recent highs at $1,550 look like a bargain. And the state of the world right now means gold is an important asset to own. We’ll look at why that is today. But first, we need to...

The numbers are stark. There is now 40% more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than in 1800. According to the United Nations, oil and gas production needs to fall by 20% in the next ten years in order to stop the Earth’s temperature rising by more than 1.5 degrees...

We know the script by now... When bad economic data hits the wires, the US stock market wobbles. Then the Fed says it’s on hand to support the economy... and the markets recover as buyers rush back in. You know how it works. You’ve been following the story in Monkey...

When Mount Pinatubo erupted in June 1991, it sent a jet of gas 12 miles up into the atmosphere. Nearly 5 cubic kilometres of magma followed: creating a cloud of ash that slowly descended on the Philippines in the weeks and months that followed.    It was the second...

Donald Trump’s up to something. He’s scheming about how to get out of the hole he’s in. I’d put money on it. He’s already furious about the impeachment enquiry that could see him removed from office. And now he’s having to watch as the US stock market groans under the...

Things have been looking good for the stock market. Since the dog days of the summer, the US benchmark S&P 500 index is up 8.8%. It’s just 1.7% from the all-time highs. And the VIX index, which measures investors’ expectation of volatility, is bumping along near...

In 2013, a group of scientists from British biotech company, Oxitec, embarked on a risky experiment in a remote region of Brazil. They wanted to study the impact of releasing a new strain of mosquitoes into the wild. Mosquitoes have been a terrible scourge in this...

It’s been a spectacular fall from grace. For the last few months, Neil Woodford has experienced death by a thousand cuts, as his several of his flagship funds have gone into lockdown, preventing investors from withdrawing their money, even as his value evaporates. My...