Investable Universe

A bold new fin-tech disruptor, London-based Fasset, says fractional ownership and tokenization of infrastructure assets like bridges, roads, and energy assets could kickstart sustainable infrastructure growth in developing economies, which will need to invest some $2 trillion per year over the next 15 years just to keep pace with projected GDP growth.

U.S. farmland investment has historically yielded impressive returns and been a reliable portfolio diversifier. But it’s been prohibitively expensive and for all but institutional investors to access. A new venture capital-funded platform, AcreTrader, hopes to change that dynamic, by making farm investment more broadly accessible to investors through fractional ownership. The firm’s founder and CEO, Carter Malloy, talks to Investable Universe about how new funding mechanisms can enhance U.S. farms’ access to capital, and about his journey from Arkansas farm child to long-short equity fund investor, and back to agricultural finance entrepreneurship.

For the past decade, Solidia Technologies, a New Jersey-based, VC-funded cement and concrete technology company, has been hard at work addressing construction’s shoddy environmental record by looking deeper at the industry’s global resource footprint. CEO Tom Schuler speaks with the podcast on why rethinking water and energy consumption is just as critical to the industry's future as are CO2 considerations, as well as the firm's international expansion. 

Joe Madden, CEO of San Francisco-based commodity technology firm XCHG, says metadata about the source and characteristics of commodities like natural gas may be just as valuable--and tradable--to downstream clients and investors as the actual commodities are today. 

Oil prices normalized rapidly after last month's drone attack on Saudi oil facilities...but the geopolitical outlook remains dicey. Commodity Research Group oil analyst Andy Lebow offers insights on whether low oil prices will last in a time of Middle East wild cards. 

Lower historical correlations with other commodities, as well as stocks and bonds, make grains a compelling portfolio stabilizer. We talked to Sal Gilbertie of Teucrium Trading LLC, the firm that brought single-commodity agricultural ETFs to the floor of the NYSE, on why not even the trade war can touch the case for grains/  

Technology has made its way into the multi-trillion dollar commercial real estate market, and venture capital investors have taken notice. Here to discuss trends in prop tech funding is Ash Zandieh, chief intelligence office of CRETech in New York City. 

Summer 2019 has been a rough go in the always-volatile market for natural gas, with lower price lows and record market shorts.. But we're going long into the weekend with avowed nat-gas bull John Woods, who joins the podcast to explain why he thinks that prices have found a floor. 

Evidence of U.S. /China trade tensions is materializing across currency markets: "safe haven" currencies as well as more volatile "commodity currencies"  viewed as proxies for China demand. Here to talk about "elevated risk across all time zones" is Crosscurrents' Investment Advisory President Keith Raphael. 

Ed Meir of Commodity Research Group and INTL FC Stone speaks to Investable Universe about the global market for industrial and precious metals. We talk the current weakness in iron ore, the China outlook, why nickel is "doing its own thing," and hear Ed's fascinating take on what might be ahead for gold and silver prices.