commodity prices


commodity reflation

The Commodity Reflation Trade Is Getting Its Reality Check

The commodity complex continues to soften with oil prices sliding below USD 50 per barrel and Chinese heavy industry commodities rushing lower. The resource reflation tide recedes with benchmark indices such as the Bloomberg Commodity Index trending towards last year’s levels. Commodity prices revert towards fundamentally reasonable levels on supply rather than demand trends.


central banks1

Zombie Economics Will Never Die

Benjamin Cole via Historinhas | The tight-money crowd is dominant in central-bank staffs, and so firmly (and self-perpetuatingly?) ensconced in such independent government sinecures that they look likely to outlast all rivals. That tight-money enthusiasts preach an increasingly dubious religion or ideology—I have dubbed it Theomonetarism—is unimportant. They have allies in media and academia, curiously always on the right-wing side of things (with some exceptions, such as Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review, James Pethokoukis at AEI, and Scott Sumner, of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University).


LAtamEmployment

Latin America: Is Unemployment the Next Shoe to Drop?

UBS | We have long argued that Latin America is in the midst of a long, protracted economic adjustment to the new reality of lower commodity prices — as China’s investment – led growth strategy runs out of steam — and of tighter capital conditions — as investment opportunities into commodities fall and the Fed gears up to raise interest rates.


china market

Inflation in China falls further amid lower commodity prices

HONG KONG | From Barclays analysts | China inflation fell further in September, to 1.6%, below consensus (1.7%), but in line with our forecast. The key downside drivers were lower commodity prices, and declining food inflation. Inflation has now fallen to its lowest levels since January 2010, a 56-month low.