Food: Creamy Almond Tea
This was my first meal in a restaurant for the past three weeks. By the time I remembered to take a photo, we were already into dessert. I had creamy almond tea.
Love: Jesus has risen!
Not convinced? Read this!
Growth: Lockdowns on/off switch
HKU’s Prof. Gabriel Leung recommended an approach to dealing with the social and economic impact of the lockdowns in response to the pandemic.
He also has a metric which can contribute towards that risk assessment – a real-time effective reproductive number.
I used the above to decide if I should go out for the restaurant meal yesterday.
Investment: Wheat Futures
My thesis is that there would be a short-term spike in wheat prices. This first came to mind when I read about the stockpiling of staples such as rice, pasta and flour in supermarkets all over the world. The personal experiences of my own family and friends scattered in different parts of the world confirmed this.
The short-term price increase would be due to a sudden increase in retail demand and sudden reduction in supply as harvesting and delivery get affected by the lockdown, and as wheat-producing countries impose quotas on exports. These would, of course, be mitigated by a reduction in wholesale demand from hotels, restaurants, and cafes as people stop eating out and traveling.
Retail demand should dip over the months following the stockpiling rush, as the stockpile will take time to get used up. Longer-term, retail demand and supply should revert back to normal. However, a large portion of wholesale demand would be lost, as traveling would no longer be the same as pre-pandemic days. The cruise industry, for example, might be a shadow of its former self.
The previous peak in 2011 and 2012 saw wheat futures reached about US$900 (+60% from current levels). The peak prior to that was about US$1,300 in 2008 (+130% from current levels). Since the middle of 2020 March, prices has increased about 10%, after hitting a high of about 16% in early April 2020.
Awe: Earthmoving silence
The impact of the Covid-19 lockdown has led to a reduction in human-induced seismic noise in Brussels by about one-third. This improved seismologists’ ability to detect other signals occurring at the same frequency. A seismologist was quoted as saying “This is really getting quiet now in Belgium.”
The reduced movements by moving vehicles and industrial machinery, other than reducing seismic noise, also reduce the vibrations which cause Earth’s crust to move.
