2.3.16

Baltic Dry Index priced in gold

Most of you have heard about the Baltic Dry Index. According to Wikipedia:

"The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) is an economic indicator issued daily by the London-based Baltic Exchange. Not restricted to Baltic Sea countries, the index provides an assessment of the price of moving the major raw materials by sea."

Basically it is an advanced indicator that gives us some hints about the future economic growth. You can find a nice explanation from Forbes magazine here. In his last letter to investors, Warren Buffett talks about the nice recovery America is living. However this is not what the BDI is showing:

We can see the low level of the BDI if we price it in gold (as if it was a currency). This is not showing any recovery, but the opposite. Probably we are sailing adrift and nobody seems to care. The incompetency of our politicians has reach a peak pushed by us, the uneducated voters.