Finance
Big change in global growth is bullish for commodities: VanEck CEO
Investors should consider commodities due to a “big change” involving international expansion, according to VanEck CEO Jan van Eck.
“The world economy started growing again,” van Eck told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week.
He singles out China, the world’s second-largest economy behind the U.S., as a key driver in the expansion.
“China which has been such a huge driver of growth and so negative for growth over the last year or two. Manufacturing PMI is now positive in China as of March,” said van Eck. “You now have growth. … So, that leads to your reflation trade.”
His firm has exposure to commodities from gold to energy to copper. Its exchange-traded funds include the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX) and VanEck Oil Refiners ETF (CRAK). They’re up 10% and 9%, respectively, year to date.
Van Eck highlights copper‘s momentum as a positive sign for demand. The industrial metal is up almost 16% this year, as of Friday’s close.
“It’s a good measure of global economic growth and energy prices. [They] probably have gotten a little bit ahead of themselves, but they’re reflecting the world is growing,” he said.
He also sees U.S. government spending as bullish catalyst for the commodities trade.
“Fiscal spending is running so super high,” van Eck said. “That’s leading to this global growth trade, too. So, that’s why I like commodities because I think it’s more than just a headline.”
As of Friday’s close, the S&P GSCI Index Spot, which tracks commodities from crude oil to cocoa, is up 10% so far this year.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.
The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.
Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.
It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.
Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.
Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.
Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI.
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