The price of this commodity has almost doubled since the start of the year

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is fetching record prices in Asia, almost doubling in the last two weeks alone. John Stepek explains why this is so important for the global economy, and for your money.

A ship carrying liquefied natural gas
Prices for LNG tankers are shooting up, too
(Image credit: © Kyodo News via Getty Images)

Which commodity investment has trounced both bitcoin and Tesla in the last year? Copper has been a great post-pandemic play. It bottomed in March and has barely stopped rising since. But it's still "only" up about 80%-odds in the last nine months. That's hardly Tesla (up about 1,000% over the same time) or bitcoin (up about 800% - as judged by the most recent high of $41,000, anyway).

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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.