Commodity "super cycle" coming?
Since the beginning of this year, against the backdrop of the setbacks of major global assets, commodities have performed well.
Internationally, the international crude oil price is heading towards "$100", and the crude oil price, which is the leader of bulk commodities, has risen sharply, driving the entire bulk commodity market to strengthen.
In terms of domestic agricultural products, palm oil rose 18%, soybean oil rose 13%, soybeans, soybean meal and rapeseed meal rose more than 14%; in terms of industrial products, iron ore, glass and other commodities rose sharply by more than 20%.
Among them, the price of glass increased by about 36%, and the price of rebar and hot-rolled coil increased by more than 13%.
Why are commodity prices rising this time?
How is the market outlook?
How do relevant entities deal with the risk of price fluctuations?
Price increases are driven by both supply and demand
International commodity prices are expected to rise strongly.
A few days ago, Goldman Sachs, an investment institution, said that the commodity market is currently in a state of shortage.
The Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index, which tracks 23 energy, metals and crop futures, hit record highs earlier this year, and many commodity futures, including oil, are trading at large backwardation.
Wang Jun, Dean of the Founder's Medium-Term Futures Research Institute, believes that in terms of agricultural products, affected by the La Niña climate, soybean production in Brazil and Argentina has been reduced, while the price of soybeans in the United States has risen, driving the price of protein meal and oil to rise.
Growth in biodiesel demand has once again driven vegetable oil futures to new highs.
Sun Kuangwen, director of non-ferrous metals research at Xinhu Futures, said that internationally, inflation in European and American countries has provided momentum for rising industrial product prices.
Domestically, in order to cope with the downward pressure on economic growth and reverse market expectations, relevant departments have successively issued a series of policies that are conducive to economic stability, which to a certain extent have boosted the prices of non-ferrous, black and other industrial products.
Supply and demand fundamentals also provided support for rising industrial prices.
Taking non-ferrous metals as an example, although the supply side has always been expected to recover growth, under the influence of factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and energy supply, the supply recovery is less than expected.
At the beginning of this year, affected by the export policy restrictions of major countries, the tightening of domestic smelting output and the strong downstream processing consumption of the three varieties of tin, aluminum and nickel, the prices of non-ferrous metals continued to rise.
In addition, the accelerated development of new energy also provides new growth points for the consumption of metals such as copper, aluminum, nickel and tin.
Overseas consumption continued to drive domestic exports strongly, metal inventories fell to historical lows, and the fundamentals of supply and demand supported the rise in metal prices.
Dong Hao, president of Chaos Tiancheng Research Institute, believes that with the improvement of the epidemic situation, the European and American economies are expected to recover further, making crude oil strong.
Coupled with the emergence of monetary easing effects, inflation expectations have risen.
An industry insider from CITIC Futures said that the domestic demand for thermal coal has been boosted by the resumption of production in high-energy-consuming industries, and the rise in crude oil prices has also driven the demand for thermal coal, resulting in a resonance rise in energy prices and an increase in the cost of related bulk commodities, leading to commodity prices. overall rise.
In the later period, whether the expectation of demand recovery can be verified and whether energy supply can be restored will become the core factors in the trend of commodity prices.
The stable operation of the domestic market is guaranteed
The topic of "super cycle" is hot again, but many industry experts maintain an objective and calm attitude towards it.
Guo Zhaohui, chief analyst of commodity research at CICC, said that from the end of last year to the present, the commodity market has gone from continuous resumption of production to frequent risks, from risk expectations to the reality of production reductions. Inventory decline and supply shortage may only be appearances, and multiple factors are intertwined. The supply outlook is the driving factor.
Regarding the global commodity market this year, Guo Chaohui believes that the main line is expected to be a narrowing of the supply and demand gap and a rebalancing of the fundamentals.
Domestically, relevant policies have been introduced to urge the “guaranteed supply and stable prices” of bulk commodities.
In 2022, there will be an unspeakable super cycle, and the price fluctuation center will tend to decline.
However, he also believes that the weak upstream capital investment of commodities in the past few years may constrain new production capacity in the next 3 to 5 years and raise the forward prices of commodities.
Although the bulk is strong in the short term, Sun Kuangwen believes that there are many uncertain factors throughout the year.
In the medium term, the supply recovery of the base metal market will be gradually advanced during the year, and metals whose production is suppressed, such as aluminum, zinc, nickel, tin, etc., are expected to rebound significantly in the second half of the year, and the supply tension may be eased.
At the same time, the growth of metal consumption may slow down in the second half of the year, and rising metal prices will inhibit the growth of consumption in new energy, new infrastructure and other fields.
"The fundamentals of supply and demand for base metals will change from a shortage of supply to a balance or even a slight surplus." Sun Kuangwen said.
As of the close on February 7, the Nanhua Commodity Index has risen by 9.57%, the Nanhua Industrial Products Index has risen by 11.45%, the Nanhua Energy and Chemical Index has risen by 12.01%, and the Nanhua Agricultural Products Index has risen by 8.41%.
Cao Yanghui, director of the South China Futures Research Institute, believes that to judge the next trend of the commodity market, we must pay close attention to the game between inflation and monetary tightening.
From the perspective of the domestic market, the inflationary pressure is not high, the monetary policy is relatively flexible, and stable growth is the main tone.
Qian Tao, assistant general manager of Galaxy Futures, analyzed that since the beginning of this year, from the perspective of investment, the equity market has not performed as well as expected. Therefore, it is not ruled out that some funds will move towards commodities.
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly convened a meeting to arrange and continue to do a good job in stabilizing the coal market price. They also reminded some companies whose coal prices were found to be inflated by monitoring, and asked to check and rectify them as soon as possible.
Based on this judgment, the relevant departments will strictly prevent the large-scale inflow of funds into the commodity market for speculation while improving the supply capacity of bulk commodities.
Make good use of futures market to manage price risk
Commodity markets are destined to be restless this year.
Industry experts said that from a macro perspective, it is necessary to do a good job of predicting and predicting risks, and to deal with external shocks such as imported inflation.
From the micro level, enterprises should strengthen the risk management of their own production and operation.
For enterprises, production and operation are inevitably affected by price fluctuations such as raw materials, finished products, exchange rates, and interest rates.
In 2021, the trading volume of my country's futures market will reach a record high, reflecting the strong demand of many industrial enterprises and various hedging institutions to use futures options to manage spot price risks.
In order to navigate safely amid market fluctuations, enterprises can establish trading positions in the futures market in the opposite direction to the spot market and matching the quantity, so that the profit and loss of the futures market and the spot market form a mutual offset relationship, so as to realize the risk in different markets. , Hedging and transferring in different time and space to ensure their own financial security.
In recent years, the coverage of futures products that iron and steel enterprises have participated in has increased significantly, and the number of enterprises that have used futures tools to transform and increase efficiency has also increased significantly.
Ding Jianming, director and general manager of Sinosteel Investment Co., Ltd. suggested that iron and steel enterprises can use coal coke ore futures to hedge raw material cost fluctuations and smooth the procurement cost curve, and they can use rebar and hot-rolled coil futures to lock in product profits and manage steel inventory. Price risk, to achieve a closed-loop risk management from raw materials to finished products.
In the field of precious metal gold, the biggest uncertainty this year may be the impact of the Fed's interest rate hike on the market, and gold may be the most directly affected commodity.
Liang Yonghui, deputy general manager of Zhaojin Refining Co., Ltd., told reporters that for gold production enterprises, facing the risk of fluctuations in the spot price of gold, they can use futures option tools to sell hedging in the futures market during rallies.
For gold refining and processing enterprises, the main risk point is the risk exposure between buying and selling, and it is necessary to make good use of the futures market to lock the bid-ask spread.
(Economic Daily reporter Zhu Huichun)