This a href=”http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008528983_icefish17.html?syndication=rss”article about the fishing industry/a in Iceland made its way into many newspapers yesterday. Apparently there is a boom in fishing, the Icelanders have not over-fished their waters and the weak ISK helps when they sell the fish abroad.br /br /Iceland will recover at some point although it may look different that it did. If you read anything about the ascendancy of Iceland that occurred you will invariably find a comment about Range Rovers driving through the streets of Reykjavik and having been there for a few days a couple of years ago I can tell you it is true; Range Rovers and BMWs aplenty. Or it was true anyway.br /br /While I don’t know how they should do this I think they need to really push to draw in more things like data centers and certain types of manufacturing that would benefit from the geothermal energy. The cost efficiencies are obvious and the location (five hours from NYC and three hours from the European continent would seem to be ideal for many multinational businesses.br /br /While the move up in foreign currencies and gold has been pronounced and I think it is the right direction for a while it will not be a straight shot up. If you are interested in these parts of the market (they are now all easily accessed) for a longer term hold you should remember that nothing can be a one way trade but the bigger macro is that rates in the US are at zero and going to stay there for a long time. Gold at $1500 is a bigger move than I would expect but a move that ends up looking pretty good seems reasonable even if the next $50 is down.br /br /Speaking of which, sort of, the crew over at a href=”http://bespokeinvest.typepad.com/”Bespoke/a noticed that gold and platinum are trading at about the same level which is a rare thing. A long/short pair trade involving gold and platinum (there are several ETPs to access platinum) is popular with some folks. Someone left a question about what absolute products I use and while a pairing of gold and platinum is not in my wheelhouse that is one that does work for some folks. Anyone just starting learn about absolute strategies and who has a knack for commodities might want to do some learning about that one.

Last 5 posts by Roger Nusbaum

• The Big Picture for the Week of November 15, 2009 - November 14th, 2009
• Process Drilldown - October 23rd, 2009
• Sunday Morning Coffee 10-18-09 - October 18th, 2009
• A Little Followup From This Morning - October 8th, 2009
• Wednesday Roundup - October 7th, 2009