🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Gold’s plunge helps explain Bitcoin’s resilience

• Over the same 24-day conflict window when Bitcoin gained about 2.26%, gold fell roughly 19% 1.
• Rising oil prices pushed up real bond yields (inflation-adjusted government bond yields), which made non-yielding gold less attractive 1.
• The U.S. dollar index (a measure of the dollar’s value against a basket of major currencies) rose about 1.27%, which weighed on dollar-priced assets. Margin calls also forced investors to sell liquid holdings such as gold to raise cash 1.

The Strait’s disruption threatens non-oil supply chains

• The conflict is choking non-energy shipping lanes. One-third of the world’s fertilizer trade moves through the Strait of Hormuz 2.
• That flow matters for food costs. It can also pressure margins for consumer packaged-goods producers such as General Mills 2.
• About 85% of the Middle East’s polyethylene exports also transit the Strait of Hormuz. The material supports plastic packaging used by companies such as Procter & Gamble, and shipments could slip if the passage closes or traffic slows 2.
• A Dallas Fed model (from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas) estimated that a closure through June could cut global economic growth by an annualized 2.9 percentage points in the second quarter 3.
• A market commentary report described corporate leaders giving roughly two weeks to reopen the strait. It also reported that United Airlines’ CEO started planning for US$175 oil 4.