Commodities Update Will commodity prices get a further boost from QE3? The dark cloud over the US economy has had a small silver lining for commodity prices in the form of renewed expectations of yet another bout of quantitative easing from the Fed and a lower dollar... 6th June 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update Gulf fiscal pressures need not mean higher oil prices Major Gulf oil producers such as Saudi Arabia now need higher prices to balance their government’s books, but these break-even rates are unlikely to act as a significant constraint on how far or... 2nd June 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Chart Pack Coming back down to earth Most commodity prices tumbled last month as doubts about the strength of global demand and even the Chinese economy grew. We believe these falls were fully justified by fundamentals and expect further... 1st June 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update What next for oil prices? Despite this week’s partial recovery, we continue to expect the price of a barrel of Brent crude to drop back below $90 by the end of the year, as global demand slows, the Middle East risk premium... 27th May 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update China Flash PMI (May) The steady deceleration in China’s economy signalled by the flash PMI today supports our view that the current weakness of commodity prices – industrial metals in particular – is fully consistent with... 23rd May 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update What will the end of QE2 mean for commodities? The conclusion of the Fed’s second round of Treasury purchases may remove one reason for commodity prices to rise but it is not necessarily a good reason for them to fall. However, there are many... 19th May 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update China's commodity demand to disappoint Expectations that buoyant Chinese demand will drive commodity prices ever higher have been looking increasingly shaky. For a start, China’s imports of many key commodities have actually been falling... 17th May 2011 · 1 min read
Emerging Europe Economics Update Russia: where's the oil price boost? The fact that Russian growth slowed in Q1 despite the surge in oil prices suggests that all is not well in Emerging Europe’s largest economy. Growth should accelerate over the second half of the year... 16th May 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Update Aluminium prices heading back towards $2,000 The price of aluminium has already fallen by around 7% this month, from the cyclical high of nearly $2,800 to around $2,600 per tonne, as part of the global commodity rout. We expect further... 12th May 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Focus What next for commodity prices? Last week’s rout in commodity prices may have been exaggerated by special factors but the falls were mostly consistent with our view of the economic fundamentals. Rather than being in the early stages... 11th May 2011 · 1 min read
Global Markets Update Inflation fears to fade as commodity prices slide This week’s sharp falls in commodity prices of all types may have been exaggerated by wild speculation but are mostly consistent with our view of the economic fundamentals. 6th May 2011 · 1 min read
Commodities Chart Pack Risks shifting to the downside This week’s sharp falls in commodity prices of all types may have been exaggerated by wild speculation but are mostly consistent with our view of the economic fundamentals. 4th May 2011 · 1 min read
Canada Economics Weekly Economy vulnerable to a commodities correction Sharply higher commodity prices and a runaway Canadian currency are boosting Canada's terms of trade, a key source of growth in incomes and therefore domestic spending. In some cases, specific... 25th April 2011 · 1 min read
Global Markets Outlook The end of QE2 – expect the unexpected As growth slows and inflation subsides, expectations of higher interest rates in the major developed economies should be scaled back significantly. The end of QE2 in the US should neither rattle... 20th April 2011 · 1 min read
Emerging Europe Economics Update Russia: No sign of a boost from higher oil prices... yet Higher oil prices have not yet fed through to a pick-up in the Russian economy. In fact, if anything the annual rate of GDP growth appears to have slowed in Q1. 20th April 2011 · 1 min read
China Economics Update Commodity prices drive abrupt rebalancing of China's trade High commodity prices have achieved what the last Five-Year Plan and a string of summits with key trading partners could not: a rebalancing of Chinese trade. In this China Watch we consider the... 31st March 2011 · 1 min read
