It’s a Buyer’s Market (well, depending on where you live)

Since August I’ve been buried with MBA school work and haven’t had a moment to break away and work on my trees. Which was ok during the winter, but now buds are on the move, so I’m back to the blog! Well, I’m not promising a comeback just yet, but here’s a short post in the meantime.

Anyone who’s been following the financial news lately has probably already noticed that there’s some really unusual things afoot in the global market. Crude Oil commodity prices has fallen significantly, and although they are currently moving side ways, many analysts expect them to fall further in the coming months due to a supply increase caused by refineries changing their production allocation from heating oil production to gasoline production for the summer. The trickle-down effect of this is cheaper gas prices, which will make those long-haul drives to bonsai shows and vendors even cheaper this summer! The only downside is that it will likely have very little effect on overall shipping costs to the consumer.

More importantly however (at least for the US) is that the the Yen has fallen from the dollar roughly 15 yen since November. What does that mean for us bonsai folk? It means that if you’ve had your eye on that perfect pot from Japan, or expensive tool, you’ll now be paying roughly 9 cents less per dollar than you would have in November.

One important caveat to this is that many Japanese vendors that are used to selling to customers in the US often price their products in dollars. If the products are priced in US dollars, the currency exchange will be done on the vendor’s end and you may or may not receive the benefit of the exchange rate. On the other hand, if you’ve been planning that vacation to Japan (or Euro-denominated Europe for that matter), you’ll definitely be able to do it cheaper than even a few months ago!

Sorry for the only quasi-bonsai related post, hope everyone is off to a good start for spring!

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