According to the analysis of many experts, the downward probability of commodity price fluctuation in the whole year is expected to be large, and the commodities may show a differentiation pattern. The black varieties with high demand in China may be relatively stronger than the crude oil and base metals with high foreign demand.
Global commodity prices were strong, and the prices of crude oil, metals, Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) and other commodities continued to rise. As of the end of January, the CRB index, which shows the comprehensive change trend of commodity prices, rose 46% year-on-year, the largest increase since comparable data were available in 1995.
Crude oil may be the most certain type of oil to rise this year. On Monday, Brent oil prices traded near a phased high of $94 / barrel. The international oil price is only one step away from the $100 mark, and the last time the price came near it was back in August 2014.
In terms of China’s industrial products, iron ore, glass and other commodities rose by more than 20%, Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) palm oil, soybeans and rapeseed meal rose by more than 10%.
According to the analysis of many experts, the downward probability of commodity price fluctuation in the whole year is expected to be large, and the commodities may show a differentiation pattern. The black varieties with high demand in China may be relatively stronger than the crude oil and base metals with high foreign demand.
Moreover, the recent rise of many varieties of black commodities has aroused strong concern of Chinese regulators. It is expected that under the influence of a series of regulatory measures, the price rise of iron ore and thermal coal will slow down and fluctuate in the range in the future.
black led the rise, and the gold price stood at the key point
Since the beginning of the year, the performance of commodities has been eye-catching. Crude oil prices, as the leading commodity, rose sharply, driving the strength of the whole commodity market.
Goldman Sachs, an investment firm, said the commodity market was in short supply. The Bloomberg commodity spot index, which tracks 23 energy, metal and crop futures, hit an all-time high earlier this year, and many commodity futures prices, including oil, showed a large spot premium.
After breaking through $90 a barrel, international oil prices continued to rise, approaching the $100 mark. Data show that on February 14, Brent crude oil futures in April opened at $95.2/barrel, with the highest intraday price of $96.16/barrel, the highest price since September 2014; WTI’s April crude oil futures opened at US $91.97/barrel, with the highest price of 93.10 yuan / barrel. Over the same period, the data showed that the Petrochina Company Limited(601857) natural gas index was 2293.92, up 1.42% year-on-year.
Luo Zhiheng, chief economist of YueKai securities and President of the Research Institute, said in an interview with the first financial reporter that the international oil price continued to rise, breaking through $90 / barrel, a new high since September 2014. First, OPEC cannot achieve full production, and the growth of shale oil production in the United States is still slow, resulting in tight supply; Second, the global economy has gradually recovered and demand has warmed up; Third, the tense situation in Russia and Ukraine triggered market concerns and further pushed up oil prices.
Most of the futures traders interviewed by the first financial reporter believe that the oil price is expected to exceed $100 in the first and second quarters. Goldman Sachs recently warned that the core basis for bullish oil prices is that the two key buffers (inventory and idle capacity) are at historic lows. By summer, OECD inventory may fall to its lowest level since 2000, and OPEC + idle capacity will also fall to an all-time low of 1.2 million barrels / day. Six precedents since 1990 show that the lack of supply elasticity requires the forward contract price to rise by 25% ~ 100% in order to achieve the effect of destroying demand and re balance supply and demand.
As far as the black system is concerned, the rise of iron ore is obvious. Wang Yangwen, manager of S & P’s iron ore index, told reporters that China’s overseas demand was strong in the first quarter. “This is the demand for iron ore brought by the resumption of factory production.” The downstream of iron ore is steel, and the demand for steel is closely related to the economic situation.
However, the surge in black is more a short-term seasonal factor. The mainstream view is that the rise of international varieties such as non-ferrous metals and crude oil can be more sustainable. Goldman Sachs recently released a report mentioned that copper breakthrough is imminent. Last week, Lun copper once exceeded the $10000 mark. Last Friday, Lun copper once soared to $10182 / ton. However, as the US inflation data hit a new high in nearly 40 years and the market expectation of the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy increased, the US index rebounded negative copper, and the copper price fell sharply for two consecutive days, reversing the increase at the beginning of the week and finally closed at US $9820 / ton.
“We believe that overseas demand is still good. After the off-season of China’s Spring Festival, copper prices can not be ruled out to continue to rise, hitting US $10500 first, and we still need to find new momentum later.” Jerry Zhang, senior copper analyst at Shanghai Nonferrous Metals network (SMM), told reporters.
In the short term, due to the influence of various demand drivers from electric vehicles to power grid, the demand for copper will remain tight by 2022. Once the macro negative factors weaken, copper will be repriced. The key question is when the catalyst for copper price breakthrough will appear.
At the same time, people from all walks of life are looking forward to the trend of gold, especially in the context of escalating geopolitical risks such as Russia and Ukraine. As of Monday, the international gold price had stood at the key point of US $1850. First finance reported two weeks ago that technically, the gold price seems to break through. If it stands at the resistance level of $1845 ~ 1855 and continues to rise, it may rise to $1950 in the future. Even if the increase is limited under the expectation of interest rate increase, it may become a powerful tool to balance the volatility of portfolio.
Louise street, senior analyst of the World Gold Council EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), told the first financial reporter: “The rise in interest rates has encouraged the risk appetite of some investors, which is also reflected in the outflow of gold ETFs. However, under the influence of central bank gold purchase, investors’ pursuit of safe haven assets has also promoted the purchase of gold bars and gold coins. Central banks increased their holdings of gold by 463 tons in 2021, an increase of 82% over 2020. Central banks from emerging and developed markets increased their gold holdings Reserve, so that the total gold reserves of central banks around the world have reached the highest level in nearly 30 years. “
what is the trend of bulk commodities in the whole year
In terms of Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) , according to the data of the Chicago futures exchange, as of the 13th, wheat futures in the Chicago market in recent months were reported at $7.98/bushel, with a one-day increase of more than 4% in recent days. The price of wheat futures delivered in may once hit the largest increase in more than four months.
Corn and soybean related futures also rose. As of the 13th, corn futures in recent months in Chicago market were reported at $7.99/bushel, and soybean futures in recent months were reported at $15.86/bushel.
Everbright futures said that Russia and Ukraine are important suppliers and exporters in the global bulk market. The aggravation of the situation in Russia and Ukraine may affect the global main grain supply. It is expected that the supply of wheat and corn may bear the brunt, and the global wheat and corn buyers will also be affected.
Wu chaoming, chief economist of Caixin securities, analyzed China first finance and economics that the recent rise in global commodity prices is caused by factors such as extreme weather and geopolitical conflict; Second, the fourth wave of global epidemic broke out, which dragged down the recovery of production and supply capacity and led to the tension of supply chain.
Wu Zhaoyin, the macro strategy director of AVIC trust, told reporters that since the main contracts of black varieties such as rebar, thermal coal and iron ore are all in May, and investors have strong expectations for the economic rise in the next second quarter, the contract price in May has increased significantly. At present, it is still an upward expectation stage, and the probability of strong commodity growth will continue in February.
With regard to the trend of commodity prices throughout the year, Wu chaoming told the first financial reporter that the downward probability of commodity price fluctuations throughout the year is expected to be large. First, the global economic recovery has slowed down. According to the OECD comprehensive leading index (CLI), the economic growth of the United States, Europe, Japan, the United Kingdom and other countries may have peaked at the end of last year, and the demand for commodities will slow down; Second, if the epidemic situation improves, global demand will shift from goods to services, and commodity prices lack a demand basis for a sharp rise; Third, the uncertainty of the epidemic situation may delay the recovery speed of the supply chain and increase the fluctuation range of commodity prices, but it will not change the overall improvement trend of the supply chain.
Luo Zhiheng also believes that the range of commodities is expected to fluctuate throughout the year, making it difficult to reproduce last year’s rise. The price itself has been at an all-time high, the European and American loose policies have withdrawn to curb inflation, and China’s policy of ensuring supply and stabilizing prices will gradually take effect. It is expected that China’s CPI will be relatively stable this year, and PPI will continue to fall year-on-year, which will not restrict monetary policy.
Citic Securities Company Limited(600030) believes that commodities may show a differentiation pattern throughout the year. On the one hand, the driving force of domestic demand may be stronger than that of external demand, and the certainty of China’s economic improvement quarter by quarter is strong. However, in the process of comprehensive tightening of monetary policy in Europe and the United States, there is peak and falling pressure on domestic and foreign demand. Therefore, the black varieties with high demand in China may be relatively stronger than crude oil and base metals with high foreign demand; On the other hand, commodity attributes are stronger than financial attributes. Base metals and precious metals with high financial attributes may be more affected by the withdrawal of liquidity from Europe and the United States, so they are under pressure, while crude oil, black series varieties and other varieties less affected by overseas monetary policies may be relatively strong.
Chinese regulators regulate
In China, the China bulk commodity index (CBMI) in January 2022, surveyed and released by the China Federation of logistics and procurement, was 101.9%, up 1.0 percentage points from the previous month. The index rose to the highest point in nearly nine months, indicating that China’s bulk commodity market is expected to be better.
According to the data of China’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ index (PMI) in January 2022 released by the National Bureau of statistics on January 30, the purchase price index and ex factory price index of main raw materials were 56.4% and 50.9% respectively, 8.3 and 5.4 percentage points higher than that of the previous month. Returning to the expansion range, the overall level of manufacturing market prices increased compared with the previous month. From the perspective of the industry, the two price indexes of petroleum, coal and other fuel processing, non-ferrous metal smelting and calendering processing industries rose to a high range of more than 60.0%, and the purchase price of raw materials and product sales price of relevant industries increased significantly.
After the Spring Festival, the price of thermal coal rose significantly. The highest quotation of 5500k coal in Qinhuangdao exceeded 1200 yuan / ton, and the contract price of zc2205, the main futures, also rose sharply, with a maximum increase of more than 15%. The sharp rise in the price of thermal coal has aroused the rapid attention of the management.
As early as January 28, the national development and Reform Commission stated that it was highly concerned about the changes in coal prices and had held a special meeting to deploy the work of stabilizing coal production, supply and price during the Spring Festival; At the same time, we will work with relevant departments to further strengthen market price regulation and supervision, severely crack down on illegal price behaviors in the spot and futures markets, and ensure that coal prices operate within a reasonable range.
On February 9, the national development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly held a meeting to arrange and deploy to continue to stabilize the coal market price, and interviewed and reminded some enterprises with falsely high coal prices found in the monitoring, requiring them to speed up the verification and rectification.
Nanhua Futures Co.Ltd(603093) believes that at present, the logic of thermal coal is very complicated, with both policy regulation and good fundamental support, good macro release and high short-term uncertainty. In the medium term, once the demand falls and the policy and fundamentals weaken, the thermal coal may return to the normal price range of previous years.
In addition, the strong rise in iron ore prices, which deviates from the fundamentals of supply and demand, also attracted attention. Recently, many departments and institutions, including the national development and Reform Commission, the State Administration of market supervision and the China Iron and Steel Association, have proposed to strengthen market supervision and ensure the smooth operation of the iron ore market.
Luo Zhiheng said that iron ore prices continued to rebound. First, heavy rains in Brazil and the epidemic in Australia led to a reduction in iron ore imports; Second, in the fourth quarter of last year, the production restriction policy was relaxed, and the steady growth policy was successively introduced. In December last year, the growth rate of infrastructure investment picked up, the terminal demand improved, the profit margin was high, and the steel plant resumed production and replenished storage.
At present, a series of regulatory measures have been effective. As of the night of February 11, the iron ore 2205 contract closed at 770 yuan / ton, down 7.62%. On February 11 and February 12, the main swap contracts of the Singapore Exchange fell by 3.05% and 1.87% respectively. According to industry analysis, some short-term positive factors have been digested by the market and reflected in the recent rise of iron ore. Under the overall situation of the state taking multiple measures to ensure the gradual reduction of steel production and the stable supply and price of bulk commodities, the demand for imported iron ore will peak and fall.
Luo Zhiheng told the first financial reporter that it is expected that the price rise of iron ore and thermal coal will slow down and fluctuate in the range in the future. First, the shortage of supply will be alleviated and imports will increase; Second, the national development and Reform Commission and other departments issued regulatory measures to ensure supply and price stability; Third, under steady growth, the recovery of terminal demand has formed a certain support for prices.
