Ronald is a metals analyst at Erste Group. Erste Group is the leading financial provider in the Eastern EU. More than 50,000 employees serve 17.4 million clients in 3,200 branches in 8 countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine). As of 31 December 2010 Erste Group has reached EUR 205.9 billion in total assets, a net profit of EUR 1,015.4 million and cost-income-ratio of 48.9%.
The more and more explicit nuclear rhetoric and the threats of a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz may soon cause the conflict to escalate.…
The biggest and most promising European shale gas deposits are located in Poland. The EIA estimates that the Polish shale gas reserves cover more than…
Iran is currently the fifth-largest oil producer in the world, the second-largest producer in the OPEC, and the third-largest oil exporter worldwide. Of the total…
The combination of still sharply rising US production, a mild winter in the US, and high inventories caused the Henry Hub price to fall to…
The spill-over of the political revolutions from the neighbouring countries to Libya and the resulting civil war have highlighted the threat caused by production downtimes…
The Austrian School provides a new angle on the development of the oil price. We already discussed the oil price development from the perspective of…
The average January petrol price in the US set a new all-time-high. The high petrol price acts like an additional tax for US consumers. An…
We believe that the “Bernanke put” is the main culprit for the price premiums in the commodity sector. The US central bank has repeatedly pointed…
“When the dollar collapse comes, it will happen two ways – gradually then suddenly. That formula, famously used by Hemingway to describe how one goes…
“The construction of skyscrapers that qualify as the “World’s Tallest Building” tends to coincide with major downturns in the economy” Mark Thornton The “skyscraper index”…
The open criticism of the US policy is getting more vociferous by the day. For example, a former central bank advisor pointed out that in…
Inflation has never been the primary driver of the gold sector on its own. Given that gold, as is well known, does not pay interest,…
“Jesting is the third-best disguise. The second-best: sentimentality. But weirdly, the best and safest disguise is still the blatant, naked truth. Nobody will believe that.“…
The (financial) world is at the moment long in questions but short in answers. We believe that gold is one of the right answers in…
“Shale gas is the most important energy development since the discovery of oil“ As already pointed out in our previous special reports, we believe that…
There is a thin line between intervention (normally by the government, government-related institutions, or more generally, politicians) and manipulation (negative connotation – as in “influence”).…
In the preface to his classic work “The Theory of Money and Credit”, Ludwig von Mises says: “Nevertheless, the problem of money has remained one…
For the first time in many years investor demand might exceed jewellery demand in 2010. In 2000, investment demand accounted for only about 4.8% of…
The performance of the US dollar constitutes a central determining factor for the development of the oil price. The criticism of the US dollar hegemony…
The paradox is the trigger of the crisis, i.e. too cheap money, is now being treated as its medicine. This could be regarded as an…