Threadneedle: Trendwende an den Rohstoffmärkten
„Wir sind überzeugt, dass die Rohstoffmärkte gut positioniert sind für eine deutliche Verbesserung im Jahr 2014, wenn die Nachfrage im Gleichlauf mit der globalen Wirtschaftserholung steigt“, erklärt David Donora, Head of Commodities, bei Threadneedle.12.12.2013 | 14:49 Uhr
Growing demand is the most important driver of increasing commodity prices, and global economic growth is the essential pre-requisite for a rise in demand. Growth expectations for 2014 have recently been revised upwards and this improvement will underpin demand for commodities. The OECD economies and in particular the US will drive global growth, which supports our view that oilbased energy will be the strongest sector next year. This is because these economies are not as infrastructure intensive as emerging markets and thus are more reliant on cheap and readily-available energy than base metals.
However, we anticipate that a number of those emerging economies, which are most aligned to the recovery in American and global growth, will also gain strength through 2014, thus boosting demand for base metals later in the year. The fact that grain prices are substantially lower than was the case a year ago (inventories have been replenished in 2013 reflecting more settled weather in both the northern and southern hemispheres) will also support consumer demand in emerging markets.This creates the possibility of positive surprises to growth among the emerging economies.
Pricing and availability of resources to support global growth
In our view, abundant and relatively affordable natural resources are an essential precondition to a resumption of strong and sustainable global growth. Following three years of declining commodity prices, there is enough spare capacity in resource production to facilitate a return to bottom-up, real economic growth.
There are of course concerns about the effects of “tapering”, when the Federal Reserve decides to scale back its programme of asset purchases. The impact of quantitative easing (QE) may be debatable, but it has supported a number of economies during the hiatus before the global economy returns to bottom-up growth while also avoiding a massive worldwide depression. Consequently, we believe that when QE is tapered, economic growth will not be affected. Indeed, tapering is likely to support business confidence since it will imply that the economy is returning to health, and that business conditions are normalising.
We are most constructive on oil-based energy where the fundamentals are strongest and supply is just about keeping pace with demand. Any oil price weakness will boost demand and OPEC will strive to prevent any significant declines in oil prices.
Soft commodities are already trading significantly below their cost of production, a situation that is resulting in falls in production, while low prices are creating robust demand that is steadily consuming inventories. Thus, we anticipate that soft commodities prices will stabilise and even rise over 2014.