Commodity and Foreign Exchange Trading

Some notes and high points by Steve H. Hanke*

About the Series | The Studies in Applied Economics series is under the general direction of Prof. Steve H. Hanke, Co-Director of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise.

Commodity and Foreign Exchange Trading. Some Notes and High Points

My Introduction to Commodity Markets | I grew up in Iowa, where I was introduced to commodity markets at a very early age – livestock and grain markets. Over 65 years ago, I learned how to sell eggs forward (hedging) on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange by assisting my grandfather. He had a large egg candling operation and supplied NYC with eggs. A few years later, at the age of 14 years, I opened my first trading account and started trading soybeans.

An Early and Long-Term Focus on Water Resources | I have had a long association with water resources engineering and management, including responsibility for the water resources portfolio at the White House during the Reagan years. The linked synopsis covers all that.

The Start of a Long-Term Focus on Mineral and Petroleum Economics | I had the good fortune to be a member of the faculty – my first faculty position – at the Colorado School of Mines (1966-1969), where I taught the first mineral economics and petroleum economics courses offered at Mines …

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Commodity and Foreign Exchange Trading

* Steve H. Hanke is a Professor of Applied Economics and Co-Director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., a Senior Advisor at the Renmin University of China’s International Monetary Research Institute in Beijing, a Special Counselor to the Center for Financial Stability in New York, a contributing editor at Central Banking in London, and a contributor at Forbes. Prof. Hanke is also a member of the Charter Council of the Society of Economic Measurement and of Euromoney Country Risk’s Experts Panel.

In the past, Prof. Hanke taught economics at the Colorado School of Mines and at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as a Member of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers in Maryland in 1976-77, as a Senior Economist on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1981-82, and as a Senior Advisor to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in 1984-88. Prof. Hanke served as a State Counselor to both the Republic of Lithuania in 1994-96 and the Republic of Montenegro in 1999-2003. He was also an Advisor to the Presidents of Bulgaria in 1997-2002, Venezuela in 1995-96, and Indonesia in 1998. He played an important role in establishing new currency regimes in Argentina, Estonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Ecuador, Lithuania, and Montenegro. Prof. Hanke has also held senior appointments in the governments of many other countries, including Albania, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yugoslavia.

Prof. Hanke has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Universität Liechtenstein, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, the Free University of Tbilisi, Istanbul Kültür University, and Varna Free University in recognition of his scholarship on exchange-rate regimes. He is a Distinguished Associate of the International Atlantic Economic Society, a Distinguished Professor at the Universitas Pelita Harapan in Jakarta, Indonesia, a Professor Asociado (the highest honor awarded to international experts of acknowledged competence) at the Universidad del Azuay in Cuenca, Ecuador, a Profesor Visitante at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (the UPC’s highest academic honor), In 1998, he was named one of the twenty-five most influential people in the world by World Trade Magazine.

Foundation in Liechtenstein | Prof. Hanke is a well-known currency and commodity trader. Currently, he is a member of the Supervisory Board of Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. in Amsterdam, Chairman Emeritus of the Friedberg Mercantile Group, Inc. in Toronto, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Airtm in Mexico City. During the 1990s, he served as President of Toronto Trust Argentina in Buenos Aires, the world’s best-performing emerging market mutual fund in 1995.

Prof. Hanke’s most recent books are Zimbabwe: Hyperinflation to Growth (2008), A Blueprint for a Safe, Sound Georgian Lari (2010), Juntas Monetarias para Paises en Desarollo (2015), Currency Boards for Developing Countries: A Handbook (2015)