The epidemic has impacted demand, and more commodities are cautious
On Friday (April 8), China's commodity futures market closed mixed, with energy chemicals leading the decline, with asphalt, crude oil and methanol down more than 3%; Most of the black series fell, stainless steel fell by nearly 3%, while ferrosilicon rose by more than 4% Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) fluctuated, with apple, palm oil and soybean oil up more than 1% and jujube down more than 2%; Most base metals fell, while Shanghai aluminum and Shanghai lead fell by more than 1%; Precious metals all rose, with Bank of Shanghai up nearly 1%.
Hot comments: from overseas, on the one hand, the situation in Russia and Ukraine is pending, and the possibility of reaching an agreement in a short time is low. The opening of the fifth round of sanctions by western countries will gradually reduce their energy dependence on Russia, and the supply chain problem is still prominent; On the other hand, the Federal Reserve will significantly tighten monetary policy at a fast pace, which will have an impact on future demand. In fact, the upside down of US bond interest rate indicates that the risk of economic recession is increasing. In China, since March, the epidemic situation in China has continued to escalate. Under the "dynamic zero" epidemic prevention policy, many places have tightened epidemic prevention measures one after another. Downstream demand is facing impact and logistics is facing interruption. However, the steady growth of macro policies has increased unabated, and the demand is expected to recover rapidly after the epidemic situation is controlled. On the whole, internationally priced goods face a pattern of short strength and long weakness, while Chinese demand dominated goods face a pattern of short weakness and long strength.
1. Black building materials: the epidemic has impacted the demand, and there may be weakening pressure in the short term
Last week, the data of China's iron and steel network showed that the steel output continued to rise, and the factory warehouse and social warehouse both accumulated. This indicates that there are differences in the commencement of work across the country due to the impact of the epidemic, and the impact of the epidemic on demand is greater than that of supply, resulting in the re accumulation of inventories and the decline of steel sector prices. In the short term, with the tightening of epidemic prevention measures in various regions, demand is facing impact, logistics is facing interruption, and the peak season of steel transaction is not prosperous. With the weakening of downstream demand, the pressure of steel price weakening has increased.
In the future, if the epidemic situation is gradually controlled, there will be a phenomenon of catching up with work in various places. At the same time, the steady growth policy will continue to be strengthened. Last week, the national Standing Committee once again stressed the need to timely and flexibly use a variety of monetary policy tools, indicating that the steady growth is expected to be further strengthened. In addition, we see that more and more cities relax real estate regulation and control, and real estate sales begin to pick up, This also means that real estate investment is expected to bottom out and improve in the second half of the year. Therefore, there is no need to be overly pessimistic about the medium and long-term trend of steel.
2. Base metals: the Federal Reserve may accelerate monetary tightening, and metal prices fall collectively.
Overnight, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the interest rate meeting in March, which showed that the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates by 50bp several times in the future, and is expected to start to shrink its balance sheet as soon as may, reducing its balance sheet by up to $95 billion a month. The more than expected hawkish signal significantly reduced the market risk appetite, superimposed with the sharp decline of international oil prices and the collective decline of copper, aluminum and other metals. From the perspective of copper fundamentals, Chile's copper output fell sharply in February. Although the output of state-owned copper giant Codelco increased by 0.7% year-on-year, the output of other major mining enterprises fell sharply, and copper supply concerns rose again; However, China's downstream demand also weakened. Provinces and cities such as Shanghai and Jiangsu tightened epidemic prevention measures, and enterprises such as copper processing and copper rod factories began to reduce or stop production. Both supply and demand sides weakened due to the impact of the epidemic, and the copper price failed to make an effective breakthrough. Follow up attention will be paid to the release of demand after the epidemic.
Precious metals: Despite the ultra hawkish remarks released by the Federal Reserve, there was no significant adjustment in gold, mainly due to the strong support brought by risk aversion + inflation + de dollarization. At present, there are still many uncertainties in the situation in Russia and Ukraine, and the upside down of the US bond yield curve indicates that the risk of economic recession will increase in the future, the demand for risk aversion still exists, the superposition of crude oil continues to rise, inflation expectations remain high, and gold still has strong support in the short term.
3. Energy and chemical industry: the contradiction between supply and demand still exists, and the decline of international oil prices may be limited.
Last week's data showed that the US crude oil inventory increased more than expected, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that Member States would release 60 million barrels of oil reserves, weakening supply concerns. At the same time, the minutes of the Fed's meeting in March released the information of accelerating monetary tightening, the market risk appetite fell significantly, and the crude oil price fell sharply.
In the future, we believe that the problem of tight supply and demand of crude oil is still difficult to be solved in the short term. First, the situation in Russia and Ukraine is still tense. Through a new round of sanctions against Russia, Europe will gradually reduce energy imports to Russia; Second, IEA said that due to sanctions and buyers' withdrawal, 3 million barrels / day of Russian oil and refined oil may not enter the market from April, and the scale of strategic crude oil reserves and OPEC + production increase put in by IEA and the United States cannot make up for this gap; Third, new progress has not been made in the negotiation of the Iranian nuclear agreement, and the possibility of Iranian oil entering the market has decreased in the short term; Fourth, the disturbance impact of China's epidemic situation is relatively limited. According to past experience, China will soon control the epidemic after tightening epidemic prevention measures, and then demand will be released quickly. Therefore, we believe that there is still strong support for international oil prices and pay attention to the support of the 600 front line.
4. Shenzhen Agricultural Products Group Co.Ltd(000061) aspect: tight supply, oil price rebounded again.
Us beans: USDA released its supply and demand report on Friday, further reducing Brazil's soybean production forecast (2 million tons to 125 million tons lower than the forecast in March), but maintaining Argentina's production forecast, saying that the global soybean production will be reduced by 3.1 million tons due to the reduction of production in Brazil and Paraguay. Meanwhile, USDA lowered China's soybean demand forecast. On the whole, the decline in output once again stimulated sentiment, and the price of American beans rebounded.
Soybean oil: at present, China's soybean supply is tight, and the soybean crushing volume will remain at a low level in the past two weeks. It is expected that the soybean oil inventory will continue to remain low. Although the inventory of soybean oil is low, the recent outbreaks in various places may affect downstream consumption.
Palm oil production rebounded unexpectedly from April to may, with palm oil production rebounding by 55% compared with April. According to SGS data, from March 1 to 31, the export volume of horse Brown increased by 7.2% month on month, indicating that the export demand began to improve. In addition, according to the data released by MPOA, horse Brown increased by 18.99% month on month in March, and the output is estimated to be 1.35 million tons.
China's palm oil fundamentals are still tight for the time being, and the import profits are deeply inverted, resulting in a small amount of imports. The absolute value of China's inventory is still low and the basis is high, which has brought support to the price of palm oil. However, in the medium term, palm oil will enter the production increase season. The market is expected that the output of horse palm will continue to increase, and the driving force for the rise of horse palm is limited. At the same time, the epidemic situation in China has recurred on a large scale, and the tightening of epidemic prevention policies in many places will affect the demand, which has suppressed the price of oil in China.
