Where are we now? Still in the Twilight Zone economy as far as we’re concerned. US stocks ended strongly on Friday. And they’re set to rise again today if Europe’s strong morning performance is anything to go by. Commodities are up too. Nymex crude oil futures are at $74.24 a barrel at writing. Gold is trading at $953.50 an ounce – not far off Friday’s one-week high.

At a summit in Rome held by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said world food output needs to rise 50% by 2030 in order for the growing population to be fed.

“Soaring prices of grains, dairy and meat have been grabbing global headlines,” says Jennifer Yousfi in Money Morning, “but other commodities have been on the rise as well.

Wheat sank to its lowest price since August last year as US farmers began harvesting what is expected to be the biggest winter grain crop in a decade, reports Bloomberg:

Production will increase 17 percent from a year earlier to 1.78 billion bushels, the most since 1998, the U.S. Department of Agriculture forecasts. About 4 percent more acres were seeded from September to November, the agency said. Wheat prices have tumbled 45 percent from a record $13.495 a bushel on Feb. 27.

The housing crisis continues to drag on and drag down the US economy. This piece from Reuters says it all:

A California man who has defaulted on nine homes and expects banks to foreclose on all of them, forcing him into bankruptcy, says he now considers it “a mistake” to have invested in the real estate market.

Shawn Forgaard, a 37-year-old software company project manager, bought one home for his family to live in and nine more as investments.

Billionaire investor Jim Rogers thinks China will be the world’s next superpower.

The man who co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros has left the US with his family and moved to Singapore. Meanwhile, the LA Times reports a growing wave of Chinese businesses are expanding into the US.

From Spartanburg to Los Angeles they are building factories, buying companies and investing in business and real estate.