Commodities Will Be the Next Market to Succumb

Commodities Will Be the Next Market to Succumb

International and Arab News

Stocks have fallen to near-bear market territory. Bonds have suffered big price declines. Foreign currencies have nosedived against the US dollar. Cryptocurrencies, SPACs and other speculations have collapsed. But commodities have been on a tear. The Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index has surged 33% this year, with energy, metals and agriculture prices all showing big gains.

Investors, spooked by faster inflation, rising geopolitical risks and accumulating portfolio losses, are pushing into commodity exchange-traded funds to hedge their portfolios. This year through April, $21.4 billion flowed into commodity ETFs in contrast to the $63 billion in outflows in the first four months of 2021, according to Morningstar. Commodities bulls may soon regret their enthusiasm as both demand and supply forces look like they will soon start to depress prices.

Covid-19 has led to continuing lockdowns in China, causing dramatic production cutbacks in the world’s second-largest economy, which accounts for 18.1% of global gross domestic product and 23.9% of manufacturing. The pain has spread to China’s imports of commodities from countries such as Brazil, Chile and Australia of oil, copper and iron ore as well as manufacturing exporters like Germany, South Korea and Taiwan. According to Nomura Holdings Inc., Chinese imports of