How you can profit from BHP Billiton's big bet on agriculture

One of the best ways to profit from rising demand for food is to invest in firms that increase crop yields. That fact hasn't escaped mining giant BHP Billiton, which has made a $39bn bid for Canada's Potash Corp. John Stepek explains what's going on, and how you can cash in.

Good news! The value of your savings is shrinking less rapidly than it was a couple of months ago.

At least, that's one way to look at yesterday's inflation data. The consumer price index (CPI) rose at an annual rate of 3.1% in July, down from 3.2% in June. And inflation in the retail price index (RPI) came in at 4.8% rather than 5%.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.