https://eco3min.fr/en/commodity-regimes-physical-constraints-energy-transition/
The world coffee market does not trade a single product but two distinct botanical species, arabica and robusta, with opposite growing requirements and quoted separately on two different exchanges. TL;DR Arabica and robusta are two botanical species with opposite temperaments,…
The arabica-robusta spread is a variable, not a fixed quality premium: squeezed to 36 cents per pound in September 2024 during the robusta surge, it reopened to 195 cents in November 2025 at the arabica record. Source: IMF, Primary Commodity…
Silver and copper are two industrial conductors that the energy transition propels together. But one keeps a monetary dimension the other never had — and that difference is what separates their signals for anyone watching the macroeconomic cycle. TL;DR Mined…
In February 2021, in the wake of the GameStop affair, a wave of coordinated buying drove silver to nearly $30 an ounce within days. It was immediately dubbed a “silver squeeze”. But silver is not a small-float stock, and financialization…
In fifteen months, two Texas heirs drove silver from $6 to nearly $50 an ounce, before a brutal collapse on 27 March 1980. The Hunt corner remains the most famous example of what a price can become when speculation, not…
Nicknamed “poor man’s gold”, silver carries a stubborn belief: it will always end up catching gold. Yet the gold/silver ratio has no fixed anchor — it has swung from 16 to over 120 in forty years — and the catch-up…
Holding physical silver, a metal-backed ETF, or shares in mining companies is not the same exposure. Each vehicle links the holder to the silver price through a different mechanism, with its own risks. TL;DR Physical silver, a backed ETF and…
Silver is torn between two identities: a monetary metal, gold’s sibling, and an industrial commodity, copper’s cousin. This duality is why it behaves sometimes as a haven, sometimes as a cyclical asset — depending on the macro regime. TL;DR Silver…
Electrical and electronics is silver’s largest industrial outlet, ahead of solar: 465.6 million ounces in 2024. The electric car, which holds about twice as much silver as a combustion model, is becoming its most dynamic driver. TL;DR Electronics is silver's…
Silver is rarely mined for its own sake: close to three-quarters of the metal comes out of the ground as a by-product of lead, zinc, copper and gold. That dependence makes supply strikingly deaf to silver’s own price. TL;DR Silver…
