Crypto News: Supply Lines: Terms of Tradle

In the hierarchy of economists, trade wonks revel in their wonkiness more than most.

Their jargon is a secret language that few can decode. Acronyms for the latest regional frameworks are welcomed like newborn cubs — the longer and more unpronounceable the better. Every Valentine's Day, the world's leading commentators on cross-border flows take to social media to outdo each other with roses-are-red zingers that would make David Ricardo either wince or cheer.

Now, everybody can geek-out on trade data, thanks to an online game called Tradle.

Borrowing the concept from Wordle, the addictive New York Times game featuring one word puzzle a day, Tradle presents a colorful matrix — called a treemap — showing the breakdown of an unnamed country's exports. You get six guesses, each one accompanied by hints about the geographic distance between your guess and the correct answer.

Which country's exports are 38.9% gold, 28.7% raw cotton and 12.6% coconuts, brazil nuts and cashews?

Source: OEC, Tradle

Benin, of course.

Such exercises are entertaining and educational, and no longer the realm of the wonks. As globalization adapts to multiple shocks — a pandemic, a war, digital commerce and climate change — understanding how the movement of goods and services is changing is an increasingly sought-after skill in economics and business more broadly. Private data providers are racing to meet the demand.

Tradle is produced by the Observatory of Economic Complexity, which had its roots in an MIT master's thesis back in 2012. The OEC, which sells subscriptions to its platform, is owned by Datawheel, a technology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Gilberto García-Vazquez, Datawheel's chief economist, said Tradle was launched in March 2022 and initially saw more than 1 million page views a month. "The surge in our website traffic following Tradle's launch surprised us, as it rapidly became one of the most popular sites we have developed," he said in an email.

Monthly views since inception has average 480,000 and recently crept above 600,000.

García said the OEC plans to add more datasets, such as company-specific figures. "Our goal is to evolve the OEC into a comprehensive hub for economic data, understanding the larger global economic picture and uncovering the complex network of interconnections within it," he said.

It's also exploring the use of artificial intelligence. "This innovation can help users understand trade data better and even predict trends," he said.

If the economic disruptions of the past six years have taught the masses anything, they've "highlighted the value of a comprehensive understanding of global trade data," García said. "Individuals and organizations, regardless of their trade expertise, have recognized the vital role of this trade data."

—Brendan Murray in London

Looking abroad | Fresh off weeks in which it started taking orders in Malaysia and exhibited at a motorsports festival in the UK, Tesla disclosed more sales than ever outside the US and China. The carmaker revealed in a regulatory filing Monday that revenue from other international markets more than doubled to $7.86 billion in the second quarter. While the US remains Tesla's biggest source of sales, revenue there has plateaued. After approaching $12 billion in the final three months of last year, sales in Tesla's home market have been lower each of the last two quarters. Revenue came to $11.3 billion in the US and $5.7 billion in China in the three months that ended in June.

With about 400 million civilian firearms owned in the US, companies seeking new buyers abroad have found an eager ally: The federal government has helped push international sales of rapid-fire guns to record levels.
Australia's economy suffered limited damage from punitive trade actions by China, government research found, as Canberra and Beijing try to negotiate an end to tariffs on Australian barley and wine exports.
SoftBank is setting up an AI-oriented warehousing joint venture with Symbotic and buying more shares in the supply-chain-services company.
Wheat prices extended a surge to the highest level in five months after Russia attacked a port on the Danube river in Ukraine, intensifying efforts to cripple a vital export route for Ukrainian grain to reach world markets.
Three oil tankers will meet up shortly in the Arctic waters of the Kara Sea, signaling that the navigation season along Russia's Northern Sea Route is open for business.
FedEx's unionized pilots rejected a tentative agreement to renew a labor contract on which talks have dragged on for more than two years.
Chevron is considering opportunities to produce lithium that would be used in electric-vehicle batteries, Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth said.
Japan's restrictions on chip-technology exports to countries including China have taken effect, part of a push by the US and its allies to curve China's ability to produce advanced semiconductors, as Peter Elstrom reports on Bloomberg Television.
Is building an American solar supply chain from scratch worth it? On the latest episode of the Zero podcast, Akshat Rathi asks Jenny Chase of BloombergNEF and Lindsay Cherry of Qcells exactly that.

Improvements in the transpacific supply-demand landscape could continue in the coming weeks as liners continue to exercise discipline in capacity deployment, which likely explained their success in defending recent hard-earned rate gains, Bloomberg Intelligence says.
Asia's low-cost air carriers are set to recapture market share lost to Covid-19 in the second half, with travel-starved passengers scooping up seats more vigorously than at rivals, Bloomberg Intelligence says.
Run SPLC after an equity ticker on Bloomberg to show critical data about a company's suppliers, customers and peers.
Use the AHOY function to track global commodities trade flows.
Click HERE for automated stories about supply chains.
On the Bloomberg Terminal, type NH FWV for FreightWaves content.
See BNEF for BloombergNEF's analysis of clean energy, advanced transport, digital industry, innovative materials, and commodities.

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