The Uncommon Commodity

A common sense guide for new, first time managers, helping you understand the transition from being a doer at work to a leader of your team; written from first hand experiences offered by author, banker, and entrepreneur, Doug Thorpe. This is a collection of practical principles, ideas, tips, and life hacks to help new managers thrive.

The definitive book on Positioning Analysis — a powerful and sophisticated framework to help traders, investors and risk managers better understand commodity markets Positioning Analysis is a powerful framework to better understand commodity price dynamics, risk, and sentiment. It indicates what each category of trader is doing—what they are trading, how much they are trading and how they might behave under a variety of different circumstances. It is essential in isolating specific types of flow patterns, defining behavioral responses, measuring shifts in sentiment, and developing tools for better risk management. Advanced Positioning, Flow and Sentiment Analysis in Commodity Markets explains the fundamentals of Positioning Analysis and presents new concepts in Commodity Positioning Analytics. This invaluable guide helps readers recognize how certain types of positioning patterns can be used to develop models, indicators, and analyses that can be used to enhance performance. This updated second edition contains substantial new material, including analytics based on the analysis of flow, the decomposition of trading flows, trading activity in the Chinese commodity markets, and the inclusion of Newsflow into Positioning Analysis. Author: Mark J S Keenan, also covers the structure of positioning data, performance attribution of speculators, sentiment analysis and the identification of price risks and behavioral patterns that can be used to generate trading signals.. This must-have resource: Offers intuitive and accessible guidance to commodity market participants and risk managers at various levels and diverse areas of the market Provides a wide range of analytics that can be used directly or integrated into a variety of different commodity-related trading, investment, and risk management programs Features an online platform comprising a wide range of customizable, regularly-updated analytical tools Contains an abundance of exceptional graphics, charts, and illustrations Includes easy-to-follow instructions for building analytics. Advanced Positioning, Flow and Sentiment Analysis in Commodity Markets: Bridging Fundamental and Technical Analysis, 2nd Edition is an indispensable source of information for all types of commodity traders, investors, and speculators, as well as investors in other asset classes who look to the commodity markets for price information.

When independence arrived in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1960s, everyone was optimistic higher living standards would quickly follow. But after almost half-a-century of intensive policy and institutional reforms, and massive foreign grants and loans, the condition of the majority has hardly improved. Bad governance has been a key factor, and must be rectified before the region can attain its aspirations. But the need for reforms extends beyond African governments alone. Some of the prescriptions donors enthusiastically promoted were flawed. Others acted as disincentives to development. Market principles, backed with external aid mostly targeting humanitarian relief, did not lay a solid foundation for growth. The problem though is not with the basic principles, but with the failure to apply them contextually. The response to poverty - the major challenge in the region - is a typical case in point. Conventional programmes try to mitigate the suffering of the poor, only to keep them hovering at the edge of hardship. A pragmatic response would recognize that poverty prevents an economy from operating at its full potential, and would elicit action to bring the poor into mainstream economic activity. Reducing poverty is no longer a magnanimous gesture, because it makes good economic and business sense. This uncommon perspective, taking social realities in the region into account, is the basis of the new strategies for policy and institutional reforms, aid management and governance, that are advanced. It is not policies and strategies alone that need to be fixed. Complex delivery processes need to be simplified. Progress would not require a revolution, but a gradual accumulation of small results, interacting to produce big impact. Most importantly, development should be promoted as an activity people do for themselves. With the right incentives, people can organize themselves to beat the adversity of poverty.

Introduction -- Reinforcements -- Plastics -- Compound constructions -- Fabricating processes -- Markets/Products -- Designs -- Engineering analysis -- Selecting plastic and process -- Summary -- Conversions.

This collection of articles is the first attempt by academics and professional writers to delve into the world of content management systems. The knowledge economy's greatest asset and primary problem is information management: finding it, validating it, re-purposing it, keeping it current, and keeping it safe. In the last few years content management software has become as common as word-processing software was five years ago. But unlike word processors, which are designed for single authorization and local storage, content management systems are designed to accommodate large-scale information production, with many authors providing many different pieces of information kept in a web-accessible database, any piece of which might find its way into electronic documents that the author doesn't even know exist. These software systems are complex, to say the least, and their impact on the field of writing will be immense.

Israel Kirzner's outstanding book on price theory is back in print. It is been very difficult to obtain it for decades, even though it is surely the best textbook on Austrian price theory ever written. The prose is crystal clear and the organization exceptional. He takes the reader through the foundations of individual action, exchange, utility, demand and supply, production, and the market process itself. Had it been in print, it would have schooled generations in Austrian price theory, and it is surely useful in the classroom today, or for general reading. Not a collection of essays, it is an integrated presentation from top to bottom, written early in Kirzner's post-doctoral career.

"It is my hope that this volume will aid in illuminating within its reader's heart the loveliness of the grace of God, and that the "sufficient grace" of God's great storehouse might be yours." Jim O'Connor