commodities

While Chipotle's fresh Mexican fare has many fans in the U.S., the company has also been adding new restaurants in Europe and is looking at further expansion worldwide. It reported impressive first quarter numbers -- but will higher food costs put the brakes on its expansion plans?

After the losses of the past week, it seems hard to imagine that the S&P 500 has much further to decline. But the index took a fall to near 1,000 as recently as last July, and the issues that punished the markets then are looming over the economy again -- or perhaps, still.

The Shanghai Composite is as close to a proxy for public firms in China as investors can get, and indexes are believed to reflect where markets think a nation's economy is headed. So what does it mean that, despite China's white-hot growth, the Shanghai Composite has been seriously lagging the S&P 500?

McDonald's expects food costs to rise between 4% and 4.5% in the U.S. and Europe this year, which puts the fast food leader between a rock and a hard place: Leave prices the same, and profit margins suffer. Raise them, and cash-strapped customers may start foregoing their Big Macs.

It feels like the price of a case of beer is higher than it has been since the Babylonians first started fermenting barley 6,000 years ago. But what's behind the rising prices? Turns out, the explanation requires a tour across the economic landscape -- and around the world.

Signs that Europe's debt troubles are larger than previously thought upended financial markets Friday, sending the dollar up nearly 1% and erasing the week's stock gains. Fears of a deepening financial crisis overshadowed reports that consumers are feeling more confident in the U.S. economy and that inflation remains in check.

With security concerns in the Middle East receding and the commodities bubble deflating, oil prices are headed sharply lower. Gas prices should follow suit: Analysts say that prices will get 25 cents a gallon cheaper in the next few days, and drop even further as the summer rolls on.

Investing is prone to manias and panics. Investors get excited as prices rise, and end up buying today what they should have bought years ago. The recent commodities sell-off reminded me of the rule I follow for commodities investing. Had you followed it, you'd have saved loads of money in 2008 and 2009 and made tons recently.

Friday's employment report has created an even hazier backdrop for stocks. Recent data showed an economy starting to cool, but with 244,000 jobs created in April, this expansion may have legs after all. But the economy's areas of support aren't what you'd have expected a few months ago.

Over the past year, the prices of many commodities have risen at record paces to record highs. But recently, those prices have begun to plunge, and consumers should begin to see the effects of those declines fairly soon, in the form of less-expensive groceries and clothing.