Commodities Are Crashing Like It's 2008 All Over Again(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Commodities Are Crashing Like It's 2008 All Over Again
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/commodities-meltdown-hits-2008-levels-of-bearishness
11 comments
The US Fed has been signaling that they are planning to raise interest rates late this year or early next year.
Not only does owning gold not pay any interest, it actually incurs ongoing cost for secure storage and insurance. Its main investment use is as a sort of insurance policy against the large-scale collapse of fiat financial systems.
Market participants evidently view the possibility of a financial collapse as remote enough that they are trading out of gold and into fiat currency, so they can receive interest rather than pay storage costs.
Not only does owning gold not pay any interest, it actually incurs ongoing cost for secure storage and insurance. Its main investment use is as a sort of insurance policy against the large-scale collapse of fiat financial systems.
Market participants evidently view the possibility of a financial collapse as remote enough that they are trading out of gold and into fiat currency, so they can receive interest rather than pay storage costs.
Is this what you are looking for? https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&...
edit: now correct graph.
edit: now correct graph.
> Surely commodities like gold are bullish in bear markets?
Maybe everyone is pouring their money into Bitcoin to ride out the downturn? /s
Maybe everyone is pouring their money into Bitcoin to ride out the downturn? /s
Well some contrarian investors are buying back into commodities as they have been over sold.
I even brought British Gas as a play on the Takeover by Shell a net 8% yield is tasty.
I did very well (300%) buying commercial property in the last down turn.
I even brought British Gas as a play on the Takeover by Shell a net 8% yield is tasty.
I did very well (300%) buying commercial property in the last down turn.
G3 central banks started the printing presses, China (and many others) got the heebie jeebies about hyperinflation (and their ownership of trillions of US Treasuries), so they stockpiled commos.
Little did they realise that their own massive structural population shifts were going to continue to keep global inflation subdued, and so now we're seeing a wholesale dump of the stockpiles.
This thing was already telegraphed by the tankfest in copper last year. It was one of the favourite stockpiles and was used as cascading collateral for many times more than its value in loans (speaking to the equity bubble too). The old "metal with a PhD". The whole thing is now unravelling.
A conspiracy theorist might argue that "the authorities" (read: the Fed) have an interest in keeping commodities down, as this allows them to continue to print. Hence easy money for shale, and, including the convenient side effect of scr*wing the Saudis, allowing Iranian oil back into the market.
BTW: next stop is western property prices. That's where hundreds of billions in emerging markets money chasing safety has also gone.
Little did they realise that their own massive structural population shifts were going to continue to keep global inflation subdued, and so now we're seeing a wholesale dump of the stockpiles.
This thing was already telegraphed by the tankfest in copper last year. It was one of the favourite stockpiles and was used as cascading collateral for many times more than its value in loans (speaking to the equity bubble too). The old "metal with a PhD". The whole thing is now unravelling.
A conspiracy theorist might argue that "the authorities" (read: the Fed) have an interest in keeping commodities down, as this allows them to continue to print. Hence easy money for shale, and, including the convenient side effect of scr*wing the Saudis, allowing Iranian oil back into the market.
BTW: next stop is western property prices. That's where hundreds of billions in emerging markets money chasing safety has also gone.
Main Street headline: "Raw materials are getting cheaper"
Wall Street headline: "Market crash: next global catastrophe?"
Wall Street headline: "Market crash: next global catastrophe?"
You have to ask yourself: are they going down because of increased supply, or because of decreased demand?
Increased supply should be good for economy as the increased supply of raw mats cause increased production of higher grade goods.
Decreased demand on the other hand indicates that something is wrong. People are not buying anymore. Can't they afford it any longer? Or or they decreasing production due to anticipated lower demand for their higher grade goods?
Increased supply should be good for economy as the increased supply of raw mats cause increased production of higher grade goods.
Decreased demand on the other hand indicates that something is wrong. People are not buying anymore. Can't they afford it any longer? Or or they decreasing production due to anticipated lower demand for their higher grade goods?
I actually agree with you; I was just poking fun at the "high price good, low price bad" tone of the article. Notice the author's apparent relief that a few commodities have "managed to stay out of the bear market" because of bad weather and supply problems.
I've found it's more "high price bad, low price bad". Bull markets come with Malthusian predictions and really strong ones with pictures of the fuel lines in the 1970s.
That's the right question to ask. As far as I can tell, the answer is: both - depending on the comnodity. For oil, it is mainly increased supply. For steel, coal, copper and co. it is probably rather a lack of demand.
Oil is a portion of the price of every other commodity. They all require energy to extract/produce and transport.
There's a third option - there's less speculation now that there was before. AFAIK, most commodities can be paper-traded as well - meaning that traders can buy and sell futures that are not physically settled, but only pay out the current spot price. - i.e. pure speculation. Is it possible that speculators stopped betting on the ever increasing prices of raw materials?
Well it could be indicative of a crisis fomenting overseas. The two obvious trouble spots are China and Europe. The Chinese have questionable economic statistics (gathering accurate statistics was never easy to begin with), and who knows what's happening in Europe. One way to get a gauge on things is to measure the inputs, i.e. consumption.
The billion dollar question for those of us living in the U.S. is, if there is a problem, will it spread?
The billion dollar question for those of us living in the U.S. is, if there is a problem, will it spread?
Consumption is still pretty weak in the US as a result of late-capitalism income inequality-- in my opinion, the US will continue with the gradual stagnation we've seen since the crash. This stagnation has been going on for years now, and it constitutes a serious crisis of its own, but the sky isn't falling like in 2008. Until there's another crash, that is. Then, there will be another "recovery" with another large slice of the wealth going to the oligarchs. My completely uneducated and totally invented prognostication for this crash is mid Q4 2015 or early Q1 2016. The biggest indications that a crash is coming are the record high stock values we've seen recently. Relatedly, the SV bubble is going to pop when investors realize that there isn't really that much "disruptiveness" in a lot of the software startups they've been funding.
China's consumption is strong as a result of it being in early to middle stage capitalism, which drastically reduces income inequality, which takes the form of a new middle class(perhaps temporarily). The problem with China involves their middle class's population-level involvement with the stock market. Everyone and their mom is invested into the market, meaning that the commoners are currently losing vast amounts of wealth as a result of the implosion. Whether this ultimately will hurt consumption isn't clear.
Europe might be okay in the medium or long term, but a small crisis is already playing out right now. Greece, while somewhat ameliorated by recent talks, is still a ticking time bomb.
An interesting third case is Japan, which is now having its second "lost generation" in a row as a result of long-term stagnation and demographic issues. Japan is a neglected back-door to the world economy. The coming months could be a much-delayed ultimate collapse or resurgence from the sleeping economic giant, though after decades of horizontal movement it's hard to envision what either would look like.
Interesting times ahead.
China's consumption is strong as a result of it being in early to middle stage capitalism, which drastically reduces income inequality, which takes the form of a new middle class(perhaps temporarily). The problem with China involves their middle class's population-level involvement with the stock market. Everyone and their mom is invested into the market, meaning that the commoners are currently losing vast amounts of wealth as a result of the implosion. Whether this ultimately will hurt consumption isn't clear.
Europe might be okay in the medium or long term, but a small crisis is already playing out right now. Greece, while somewhat ameliorated by recent talks, is still a ticking time bomb.
An interesting third case is Japan, which is now having its second "lost generation" in a row as a result of long-term stagnation and demographic issues. Japan is a neglected back-door to the world economy. The coming months could be a much-delayed ultimate collapse or resurgence from the sleeping economic giant, though after decades of horizontal movement it's hard to envision what either would look like.
Interesting times ahead.
s/late-capitalism/crony-corporatism/
We don't have capitalism, we have the joining of government and corporations and they are becoming ever more entwined.
We don't have capitalism, we have the joining of government and corporations and they are becoming ever more entwined.
Yeah, but I have to water down the language or else there will be idiots crawling out of the woodwork.
People get all ornery when you call it fascism.
People get all ornery when you call it fascism.
Don't mean to ride you on this point, but proper terms are very important. You can call it corporatism if you think fascism conjures up a black-and-white image of Il Duce, but calling it capitalism sets us back in terms of actually understanding the causes of our current crises, and hampers the already Sisyphean task of teaching people what capitalism actually means: a politico-economic system of laissez-faire and the protection of individual rights.
So, this is not a product of "late-capitalism income inequality"; it is a product of central banking in the U.S. and around the world, and their artificial tinkering with interest rates/the money supply for political expediency.
So, this is not a product of "late-capitalism income inequality"; it is a product of central banking in the U.S. and around the world, and their artificial tinkering with interest rates/the money supply for political expediency.
Isn't the fundamental piece of capitalism privately owned capital? What would we call a system of lasses-fair and protection of individual rights where those rights only included the right to rent capital from the state (not own it).
I believe the proper term is statism, no?
Collusion of big business and the state.
Collusion of big business and the state.
"Late" capitalism, which is to say, capitalism that has been around for a while, mostly is crony capitalism. There is a feedback loop between capitalism and democracy (and probably most other forms of government), a consequence of the positive correlation between wealth and power. A concentration of wealth leads to a concentration of power, which corrupts and degrades the democracy, leading to a further concentration of wealth and power, and so on. This is why treating capital markets as an end rather than a means is so dangerous.
a/k/a fascism
A few thoughts on your comment...
The SV scene isn't like the dotcom days without a business plan. There's a lot of startups now that have revenue from day one, and are cashflow positive. The value is tangible in many cases (not all).
Second, I wonder what impact the tanking China economy will have on the US real estate market. Wealthy Chinese have been parking their dollars in real estate here for a while, and with the stock market seen as more risky now, I wonder if that trend will increase and drive up home prices further.
The SV scene isn't like the dotcom days without a business plan. There's a lot of startups now that have revenue from day one, and are cashflow positive. The value is tangible in many cases (not all).
Second, I wonder what impact the tanking China economy will have on the US real estate market. Wealthy Chinese have been parking their dollars in real estate here for a while, and with the stock market seen as more risky now, I wonder if that trend will increase and drive up home prices further.
I agree with you in regards to the SV scene, but it's important to remember that even established firms could sink under the right economic conditions. Sure, there's no obvious pets.com.
As far as the US real estate market goes, I'd say it's possible that people parking their money here in even greater numbers will accelerate the current drive for luxury real estate while causing a shrinking of the middle value real estate market. You also see this in London right now, with tons of new luxury buildings being built and sold off, only to sit empty and used as a value bank. The general effect is that real estate values in general rise sharply and people are forced out of middle-value areas so that they can be redeveloped into ultra-high value areas. These are geographically centered effects, though. I'm really not sure how much it could drive the larger real estate market, which is already as hot as it's been since the crash.
As far as the US real estate market goes, I'd say it's possible that people parking their money here in even greater numbers will accelerate the current drive for luxury real estate while causing a shrinking of the middle value real estate market. You also see this in London right now, with tons of new luxury buildings being built and sold off, only to sit empty and used as a value bank. The general effect is that real estate values in general rise sharply and people are forced out of middle-value areas so that they can be redeveloped into ultra-high value areas. These are geographically centered effects, though. I'm really not sure how much it could drive the larger real estate market, which is already as hot as it's been since the crash.
Real estate investments are a bit of a musical chairs game. A temporary positive side effect for anyone who may leverage the gains before the rug is pulled out from the seemingly inevitable market force of the "business cycle" bubbles and waves.
Conversely, if it were investments in infrastructure, businesses, and tangible productive goods that create real world value, we could rest a bit easier.
Conversely, if it were investments in infrastructure, businesses, and tangible productive goods that create real world value, we could rest a bit easier.
It could also be indicative of future market moves in other markets too, even if these moves are not crises. The large moves in commodities has been anomalously _uncorrelated_ with equity markets, though historically over long enough windows the two move together. This raises the question of whether this trend has broken or if one (commodities markets or equities) will budge in the direction of the other soon. My crystal ball is too smudgy to know this myself...
Brazil is running into big problems too: http://www.businessinsider.com/brazil-indicators-look-like-2...
Even on Main Street, when an upscale boutique gets replaced by a dollar store that's not a good sign.
When times are good it doesn't feel like stuff's getting cheaper, it feels like people have more money. A crash in raw materials is a bad sign - it likely means companies have stopped buying because they've stopped innovating, or because they think pretty soon people aren't going to be buying stuff.
When times are good it doesn't feel like stuff's getting cheaper, it feels like people have more money. A crash in raw materials is a bad sign - it likely means companies have stopped buying because they've stopped innovating, or because they think pretty soon people aren't going to be buying stuff.
Due to our banking model in the West when times are "good" it's actually making life worse for our kids as the primary outcome is land price inflation which makes people fell richer but is not for most monetizable.
The big one here is oil.
The markets go down on tumbling oil prices. I mean I see why oil companies go down. It's lower profits and, worse, as oil becomes harder to find the technical cost of extraction goes up. There are I'm sure many fields where the technical extraction cost is pushing if not exceeding $50/barrel.
Yet this is actually good for pretty much everyone else. Oil is one of those things that's an input cost into almost everything.
So why aren't the markets talking about how this is going to be better for particularly high oil consumption industries? Airlines spring to mind.
Actually, side rant: the so-called "fuel surcharge" airlines charge is such a joke. I wish it were illegal. There is no "fuel surcharge". It just costs more than it used to. Put it into the ticket price and be done with it.
Because you know the fuel surcharge isn't going away when oil prices drop.
The markets go down on tumbling oil prices. I mean I see why oil companies go down. It's lower profits and, worse, as oil becomes harder to find the technical cost of extraction goes up. There are I'm sure many fields where the technical extraction cost is pushing if not exceeding $50/barrel.
Yet this is actually good for pretty much everyone else. Oil is one of those things that's an input cost into almost everything.
So why aren't the markets talking about how this is going to be better for particularly high oil consumption industries? Airlines spring to mind.
Actually, side rant: the so-called "fuel surcharge" airlines charge is such a joke. I wish it were illegal. There is no "fuel surcharge". It just costs more than it used to. Put it into the ticket price and be done with it.
Because you know the fuel surcharge isn't going away when oil prices drop.
Gas stations and airline fuel charges have always been first to rise, last to fall. It is confusing when you see oil drop like it has then see the price across the street go up 5 cents tomorrow. Could it be fixed, yes, do they have much incentive to do it...no.
As far as gas stations go - they make most of their money by lagging behind the fall in oil prices. They make an extremely small profit most of the time and a larger profit when oil prices fall.
Gas stations usually operate with the gas almost as a loss leader for the attached convenience store.
Gas stations usually operate with the gas almost as a loss leader for the attached convenience store.
In all fairness, Canada and Australia are more or less commodity extraction economies with catastrophically inflated real estate markets. Lower commodity prices could prick that situation and cause some jumbled jonathans.
That is a huge generalization about the Canadian economy. Mining and oil is 8% of the economy. Less than manufacturing and less than services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Canada
And 4% less than: real estate!
I would love to see a huge correction in Vancouver but many people have been born and died waiting for it to happen.
Apparently it's an acceptable outlet for dirty cash from shady foreign 'investors', http://www.theprovince.com/travel/Chinese+money+launderers+s...
This is disgusting. London is traditionally the home of money laundering. Sigh. New money has no sense of history.
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How much of a correction you're looking for? a 10% sounds very feasible in a down market but a 50% hit sounds implausible esp. in the short run.
Median house for a detached house in the "poor" east side is $1.28 million, $2.9 million in the traditionally more desirable west side. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/vancouvers...
Vancouver is actually one of the poorest large cities in Canada. Average income in Vancouver proper in 2009 was $43,911. https://www.biv.com/article/2014/9/trick-or-treating-planner...
All this means that Vancouver is the 2nd most unaffordable housing market in the world (after Hong Kong) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/only-ho....
Accordingly a housing is already so inflated that a 10% drop means nothing. Even a 20% drop wouldn't make things affordable.
Vancouver is actually one of the poorest large cities in Canada. Average income in Vancouver proper in 2009 was $43,911. https://www.biv.com/article/2014/9/trick-or-treating-planner...
All this means that Vancouver is the 2nd most unaffordable housing market in the world (after Hong Kong) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/only-ho....
Accordingly a housing is already so inflated that a 10% drop means nothing. Even a 20% drop wouldn't make things affordable.
In 2008-2011 a 40-60% swing took place in many parts of the US. Arizona, Nevada, Florida all being at the top of the list. The number of foreclosures was devasting to those areas. Vegas, Phoenix etc. were hit extremely hard. Many folks placed keys in the mail box and just walked away from properties -- leading speculators and savvy home buyers to come in at rock bottom and buy their homes on the cheap.
History may not repeat itself but it definitely rhymes.
History may not repeat itself but it definitely rhymes.
I don't know about the real estate market for each state you cited but if the market activities were driven mainly by speculation and short term flipping then a 50% dive esp. in a highly leveraged market sounds very plausible but it seems that Vancouver has very sound fundamentals to sustain the higher prices.
> it seems that Vancouver has very sound fundamentals to sustain the higher prices.
Have you seen the pictures?
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/
Have you seen the pictures?
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/
Not to mention Florida, Nevada, and Arizona had a housing supply glut where you will likely never see one in Vancouver in your lifetime.
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"Are Crashing"? Actually commodity market flat today.
The commodities already "crashed" 45% or so:
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=DBC+Interactive#{%22range...
"Are crashing" is appropriate IMHO. Today might be flat but the trend is down and there's no indication that's halted or reversed yet.
Is it that surprising? What's the bull case for commodities exactly? Europe continues to slide in and out of recession. China is slowly significantly and is structurally trying to change it's economy to be more consumption based. LatAm is a mess.
Remember around 2008-9, when the next big markets were commodities and futures.
[deleted]
From The Economist:
"So far this year oil-production firms have raised $15 billion of equity and $20 billion of bonds, helped by frothy markets, a near-zero Fed Funds rate and a partial recovery in the oil price. Even Goodrich, the troubled firm in Houston, managed to issue in February $100m of “second-lien” debt, which is secured against assets, at an 8% interest rate...
First, consider the juicing-up of performance. During the quarter to March the industry reported aggregate cashflow from operations of $15 billion—this is the money the business throws off before capital expenditure and financing activity. But this reflects the benefit of derivative hedges taken out in 2014 when oil prices were much higher, and which in most cases will largely run out over the course of the next year or so. Exclude derivatives, and cashflow was 31% lower. Almost half of firms, accounting for 1% of global oil production, relied on transitory gains from derivatives for over half of their cashflow...
Were the industry to have balanced its books (excluding the benefit of hedges), capital investment would have needed to be 70% lower. Capital investment feeds through to production volumes with a lag of 3-9 months. Today’s healthy production figures are no guarantee of future bounty.
The second concern is a deep well of debt. Listed E&P firms owe $235 billion and during the first quarter debt rose, reflecting continued heavy spending. Assume a firm is in trouble if its net debt is more than eight times its annual cashflow from operations (based on the annualised first-quarter figures and excluding the benefit from derivatives). On the basis of this snapshot, 29 of the 62 firms are distressed, owing a total of $84 billion. Listed shale firms with distressed balance-sheets account for 1.1m barrels a day of oil production, or 1.2% of global oil production...
In Texas and North Dakota oil men secretly dream that the global supply of crude will shrink without shale declining. The biggest oil firms, which have vast reserves of cash, are continuing to invest heavily in shale. In May ConocoPhillips, which says it has some of the lowest-cost shale properties in America, committed to invest $3 billion a year and forecast rising production up to 2017. By this account America’s smaller E&P firms are being astute: they are using their derivatives hedges and their mastery at raising capital on Wall Street to bridge a difficult patch. When oil prices pick up later this year they will start investing even more heavily in growth, but with leaner cost bases. In a decade’s time the 2015 oil-price dip will seem as transitory as that in 2009 during the financial crisis.
But there is another, less rosy scenario for America’s shale barons. Oil prices may remain flat. Towards the end of this year their hedges run out; shale-oil production dips markedly as the lagged effect of capital-investment cuts kicks in. (Output has already dipped in the Bakken basin in North Dakota.) With growth evaporating and cashflow faltering it becomes harder to sell shares—the pace of capital-raising has indeed slowed in recent weeks. The junk-bond market becomes jittery and E&P firms start to worry about refinancing the $66 billion of debt and interest that is due in 2016-18. As firms’ oil-reserves estimates are marked down to reflect lower prices, banks cut their loans, which they typically tie to reserves figures."[0]
So if this article is to be believed, these oil companies will probably survive short to mid-term price decreases, and won't cause huge bank losses at least for a while. However, this only tells the tale of one commodity; with Chinese demand for commodities decreasing and the U.S. and European consumers doing mediocre financially-speaking, we may end up with a significant downturn. Not to digress, but I personally think the next crisis will be triggered by subprime student loan debt.
[0] http://www.economist.com/news/business/21656671-americas-sha...
"So far this year oil-production firms have raised $15 billion of equity and $20 billion of bonds, helped by frothy markets, a near-zero Fed Funds rate and a partial recovery in the oil price. Even Goodrich, the troubled firm in Houston, managed to issue in February $100m of “second-lien” debt, which is secured against assets, at an 8% interest rate...
First, consider the juicing-up of performance. During the quarter to March the industry reported aggregate cashflow from operations of $15 billion—this is the money the business throws off before capital expenditure and financing activity. But this reflects the benefit of derivative hedges taken out in 2014 when oil prices were much higher, and which in most cases will largely run out over the course of the next year or so. Exclude derivatives, and cashflow was 31% lower. Almost half of firms, accounting for 1% of global oil production, relied on transitory gains from derivatives for over half of their cashflow...
Were the industry to have balanced its books (excluding the benefit of hedges), capital investment would have needed to be 70% lower. Capital investment feeds through to production volumes with a lag of 3-9 months. Today’s healthy production figures are no guarantee of future bounty.
The second concern is a deep well of debt. Listed E&P firms owe $235 billion and during the first quarter debt rose, reflecting continued heavy spending. Assume a firm is in trouble if its net debt is more than eight times its annual cashflow from operations (based on the annualised first-quarter figures and excluding the benefit from derivatives). On the basis of this snapshot, 29 of the 62 firms are distressed, owing a total of $84 billion. Listed shale firms with distressed balance-sheets account for 1.1m barrels a day of oil production, or 1.2% of global oil production...
In Texas and North Dakota oil men secretly dream that the global supply of crude will shrink without shale declining. The biggest oil firms, which have vast reserves of cash, are continuing to invest heavily in shale. In May ConocoPhillips, which says it has some of the lowest-cost shale properties in America, committed to invest $3 billion a year and forecast rising production up to 2017. By this account America’s smaller E&P firms are being astute: they are using their derivatives hedges and their mastery at raising capital on Wall Street to bridge a difficult patch. When oil prices pick up later this year they will start investing even more heavily in growth, but with leaner cost bases. In a decade’s time the 2015 oil-price dip will seem as transitory as that in 2009 during the financial crisis.
But there is another, less rosy scenario for America’s shale barons. Oil prices may remain flat. Towards the end of this year their hedges run out; shale-oil production dips markedly as the lagged effect of capital-investment cuts kicks in. (Output has already dipped in the Bakken basin in North Dakota.) With growth evaporating and cashflow faltering it becomes harder to sell shares—the pace of capital-raising has indeed slowed in recent weeks. The junk-bond market becomes jittery and E&P firms start to worry about refinancing the $66 billion of debt and interest that is due in 2016-18. As firms’ oil-reserves estimates are marked down to reflect lower prices, banks cut their loans, which they typically tie to reserves figures."[0]
So if this article is to be believed, these oil companies will probably survive short to mid-term price decreases, and won't cause huge bank losses at least for a while. However, this only tells the tale of one commodity; with Chinese demand for commodities decreasing and the U.S. and European consumers doing mediocre financially-speaking, we may end up with a significant downturn. Not to digress, but I personally think the next crisis will be triggered by subprime student loan debt.
[0] http://www.economist.com/news/business/21656671-americas-sha...
To give perspective to people here, the movements in the commodities market before 2000 were very tepid but post the dot com bubble burst and the ensuing recession that commodities started to experience upward pressure and then come the 2003 Iraq War oil shock and then commodities just took off till the crash in 2008.
For more info, check this Wikipedia entry on the commodities super cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_commodities_boom
For more info, check this Wikipedia entry on the commodities super cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_commodities_boom
Amazing how the stock market 'investor' language and mindset thinks of increases in costs of commodities as a positive thing.
If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. It is not the case that investors are simply greedy and want higher prices so they can make more money. Economies are not a zero-sum game where people can only make money when someone else loses it.
Commodities are the basic inputs into other overall economic activity. Glossing over the details, if commodity prices are falling, it means that overall economic activity is faltering. It means fewer commodities are required because fewer higher order things are being produced with them. It means more people are out of work rather than building stuff.
Conversely, high commodities prices means there are lots of people willing to buy them at high prices. This implies that lots of new stuff is being built -- otherwise, nobody would pay those high prices, and prices would fall. It means that lots of people are working productively and lots of new value is being created.
Commodities are the basic inputs into other overall economic activity. Glossing over the details, if commodity prices are falling, it means that overall economic activity is faltering. It means fewer commodities are required because fewer higher order things are being produced with them. It means more people are out of work rather than building stuff.
Conversely, high commodities prices means there are lots of people willing to buy them at high prices. This implies that lots of new stuff is being built -- otherwise, nobody would pay those high prices, and prices would fall. It means that lots of people are working productively and lots of new value is being created.
Inexpensive commodities should be a universally positive goal. Scarcity is a plague we need to cure.
Strains on supplies of commodities, driving prices upward only indicates supply scarcity, not necessarily related to widespread creation of material goods.
Strains on supplies of commodities, driving prices upward only indicates supply scarcity, not necessarily related to widespread creation of material goods.
Getting rid of scarcity is great as a long term goal, but it's not happening any time soon. The technology does not exist yet to do so, which is why these things are still traded for money. This goal is unfortunately not relevant to commodity price movements on human time scales, and falling prices shouldn't be interpreted as evidence of scarcity no longer existing. Commodity prices don't fall because someone invented a great new way to get corn or oil without labor or fertilizer or land; they fall because of short-term supply and demand imbalances.
Upward prices does not only indicate supply scarcity. It might indicate supply scarcity, or it might indicate increased demand. There are two sides to the market, and either can move the price. Prices are not "driven" upwards by some teleological entity that just wants higher prices; the action of people buying and selling finds a consensus equilibrium based on supply and demand.
If one commodity price is going up, it might be the case that there's a supply shortage. If all are going up, it indicates broad based demand due to a healthy economy that requires more inputs. Broad supply scarcity rarely if ever extends beyond a few specific commodities. Oil might be scarce, but all commodities being scarce almost never happens. Commodities are widely produced in many diverse locations all around the world by groups with widely different goals.
If the average price of all commodities is rising broadly, it's demand-driven, not supply constraint. Barring events like a world war, there will never be a massive simultaneous supply shortage in oil, wheat, corn, soybeans, cattle, hogs, gold, silver, and frozen orange juice. A broad price rise is thus generally a good thing since it means lots of people have jobs producing things and are making money to buy things that require these inputs.
Upward prices does not only indicate supply scarcity. It might indicate supply scarcity, or it might indicate increased demand. There are two sides to the market, and either can move the price. Prices are not "driven" upwards by some teleological entity that just wants higher prices; the action of people buying and selling finds a consensus equilibrium based on supply and demand.
If one commodity price is going up, it might be the case that there's a supply shortage. If all are going up, it indicates broad based demand due to a healthy economy that requires more inputs. Broad supply scarcity rarely if ever extends beyond a few specific commodities. Oil might be scarce, but all commodities being scarce almost never happens. Commodities are widely produced in many diverse locations all around the world by groups with widely different goals.
If the average price of all commodities is rising broadly, it's demand-driven, not supply constraint. Barring events like a world war, there will never be a massive simultaneous supply shortage in oil, wheat, corn, soybeans, cattle, hogs, gold, silver, and frozen orange juice. A broad price rise is thus generally a good thing since it means lots of people have jobs producing things and are making money to buy things that require these inputs.
Expensive commodities can also just mean speculators are crowding out the legitimate market.
oh BuzzBorg, always with the clickbait
Not trying to time the market, but this seems like a good time to buy?
http://www.kitco.com/charts/popup/au1825nyb.html
How is that not trying to time the market? Anyway, it's a good time to buy if you expect a downturn similar to what happened in 2008, and belief others are not more pessimistic than you. If you are confident in that then yeah, bet your life savings on it ;)
Cool!!! I just mortgage the house, my life savings, and my kids college fund. Off to sell all my hard assets to muster up some more cash to invest. It can only go up ;)
> I just mortgage the house, my life savings, and my kids college fund.
Into what? Hogs or soybean meal? :)
Maybe hedge between the two: that way you have something to feed the hogs.
Into what? Hogs or soybean meal? :)
Maybe hedge between the two: that way you have something to feed the hogs.
Good idea. I like the way your thinking. But I was thinking of adding in Nickel. That way I really can leverage the saying "If I had a nickle every time <blank> happened".
Not to mention, "don't take any wooden nickels".
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What am I missing? (Not an economist)