大宗商品价格混乱正在威胁全球经济

• 主要食品和能源大宗商品的全球供应正在开始影响全球经济。

• 不断上升的核心通胀和强硬的央行政策可能会进一步影响全球经济增长。  

• 全球所有大宗商品价格指数自2020年第二季度疫情期间的低点以来迄今已增长一倍多。  

据美国油价网4月14日报道，企业和消费者已经感受到从原油到谷物和金属等各种大宗商品价格上涨的影响。今年以来，由于地缘政治冲突而引发的大宗商品市场剧烈波动，使现实世界的经济增长前景变得复杂，并推高了全球消费者的食品和能源价格。包括原油、天然气、小麦、大豆、工业原料和贵金属在内的大宗商品价格飙升，已经冲击了全球的消费价格，通胀率达到40年来的高点。这促使美联储开始加息以抑制通胀，预计美联储未来几个月还会有更多次加息。

大宗商品库存普遍处于极低水平

在全球范围内，各种大宗商品的供应都低于需求。

摩根大通大宗商品策略师特蕾西·艾伦告诉《华尔街日报》记者瑞安·德泽贝尔：“能源、农产品和金属的库存普遍处于极低水平。”摩根大通预计，大宗商品价格将一直保持高位，直到明年年底。  

如果地缘政治冲突扰乱能源供应大国能源产品的实质性出口，那么大宗商品供应可能会进一步下降。

联合国粮农组织指出，战争导致全球食品价格创历史新高。联合国粮农组织称，3月份粮农组织食品价格指数平均为159.3点，比2月份上涨12.6%，此前已达到1990年该组织全面启动以来的最高水平。粮农组织食品价格指数跟踪一揽子常见交易食品价格的月度变化。3月份的物价比去年3月份上涨33.6%。

丹麦盛宝银行大宗商品策略主管奥利·汉森日前在公司每周大宗商品市场更新报告中表示，“今年继续中断供应的前景，加上美国和南美的天气担忧，以及提到的燃料和化肥价格上涨，可能会导致又一年的全球供应紧张。”

汉森指出，今年第一季度，全球大宗商品行业出现了有史以来最好的季度。  

他说：“在第一季度，战争和制裁加剧了本已强劲的行业表现，导致彭博商品现货指数上涨24%，这是人们记忆中最好的一个季度，因此几乎超过去年26.5%的涨幅，那是自2000年以来最好的年度表现 。”

投机商退出油气市场 

汉森说：“地缘政治冲突和日益严厉的制裁已经切断多种供应渠道，从原油和天然气到主要工业金属，以及小麦、玉米和食用油等粮食商品。”

大宗商品市场的动荡，极端的波动，以及期货交易所大幅提高的初始利润率，导致石油期货投机商大批撤离。纸货石油市场流动性下降加剧了波动性，以至于一些交易商在3月份表示，“这个市场是不可交易的。”

高利润要求提高了大宗商品交易公司的流动性需求，这些公司在世界各地进行现货石油交易。 通过商品期货合约，交易机构可以对冲风险。如果没有大宗商品衍生品，许多交易商将无法移动石油的实物量。

托克公司首席财务官克里斯托夫·萨尔蒙3月曾在英国《金融时报》大宗商品全球峰会上表示，“我们需要一个功能完备的大宗商品期货市场，而我们观察到的是未平仓头寸的减少。假设形势没有正常化，这种效率低下的期货市场将会变成现货市场。” 

摩根大通商业银行总经理兼首席经济学家吉姆·格拉斯曼本周表示，自2020年第二季度全球所有大宗商品价格指数创下疫情低点以来，如今已上涨逾一倍，比上一个商业周期的平均水平高出62%。

据这位经济学家说，即使达成和平协议，市场可能也会在价格中计入石油、小麦、玉米、镍和钯等大宗商品的政治风险。

格拉斯曼指出：“期货市场预计油价将在未来几年保持高位。消费者已经感受到能源价格高企带来的压力，因为油价飙升几乎立即导致加油站燃料价格上涨。” 

格拉斯曼说：“每桶原油价格每上涨42美元，普通家庭每年将在汽油上多花费500美元。”  

依赖原材料和运输的企业可能会在未来几个月发现挑战。这位经济学家指出，如果大宗商品和石油价格的上涨开始波及核心通胀，这可能迫使美联储计划进一步上调利率，从而给经济降温。

李峻 编译自 美国油价网

原文如下：

Commodity Chaos Is Threatening The Global Economy

·     Global supply of key food and energy commodities is starting to impact the global economy. 

·     Rising core inflation and hawkish Central Bank policy could further impact economic growth.

·     The Global Price Index of All Commodities has more than doubled since its pandemic low in Q2 2020.

·     

Businesses and consumers are already feeling the impact of the rally in commodity prices of everything from crude oil to grains and metals. The year’s highly volatile commodity markets, are complicating real-world economic growth prospects and are raising food and energy prices for consumers globally. The surge in commodities, including crude oil, natural gas, wheat, soybeans, and industrial and precious metals, have already hit consumer prices globally, with inflation at a 40-year high. This has prompted the Fed to start raising interest rates to tame inflation, with more rate hikes expected in the coming months.  

Commodity Inventories “Critically Low” 

Globally, the supply of commodities of all kinds is lower than the demand. 

“Inventories across energy, agricultural and metals are critically low everywhere,” Tracey Allen, commodities strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co, told Ryan Dezember of The Wall Street Journal. JPMorgan sees commodity prices staying elevated through the end of next year.  

The supply of commodities could head even lower as it is one of the world’s top exporters of corn, wheat, and vegetable oils. Reduced exports of Ukrainian agricultural commodities could raise food insecurity in many countries in South Asia, Western Asia, and Africa, IHS Markit said last month. 

Respectively, the UN said last week when it noted that the war resulted in a fresh all-time high in global food prices. The FAO Food Price Index averaged 159.3 points in March, up 12.6 percent from February, when it had already reached its highest level since its inception in 1990, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. The FAO Food Price Index tracks monthly changes in the prices of a basket of commonly traded food commodities. Last month’s prices were 33.6 percent higher overall compared to March last year. 

“The prospect of continued supply disruptions this year together with US and South American weather concerns as well as the mentioned rise in the cost of fuel and fertilizers will likely lead to another year of tightening supply,” Ole Hansen, Head of Commodity Strategy at Saxo Bank, said in a weekly commodity market update last week. 

The commodities sector overall saw the best quarter ever in Q1 2022, Hansen noted. 

“During the first quarter, war and sanctions turbocharged an already strong performing sector, resulting in the Bloomberg Commodity Spot Index registering a 24% gain, its best quarter in living memory, thereby almost eclipsing the 2021 gain of 26.5%, the best annual performance since 2000,” he said. 

Speculators Pull Out Of Oil & Gas Markets 

“The war and increasingly tough sanctions have uprooted multiple supply channels from crude oil and gas to key industrial metals as well as food commodities such as wheat, corn, and edible oils,” Hansen says. 

The market turmoil in commodities, the extreme volatility, and the futures exchanges raising initial margins significantly. The lower liquidity in the paper oil market exacerbated the volatility to the point of some traders saying in March that “the market is untradeable.” 

The high margin requirements raised the liquidity needs of commodity trading firms, which trade physical barrels around the world. Via futures contracts in commodities, trading houses hedge against risks. Without commodity derivatives, many traders would not be able to move physical volumes of oil.   

“We need a fully-functioning commodities futures market and what we’ve observed is a decrease in open interest. Assuming the situation does not normalise, there will be consequences of this inefficient futures market into physical,” Christophe Salmon, CFO at Trafigura, said at the FT Commodities Global Summit last month.

The Global Price Index of All Commodities has more than doubled since its pandemic low in Q2 2020, pushing 62 percent higher than its average during the last business cycle, Jim Glassman, Managing Director and Head Economist for Commercial Banking at JPMorgan, said this week.

Even if peace is reached, markets are likely to price in political risks for commodities such as oil, wheat, corn, nickel, and palladium, according to the economist.  

“Futures markets anticipate oil prices to remain elevated for years,” Glassman noted. 

Consumers are already feeling the pinch from high energy prices because oil price spikes almost immediately lead to higher prices at the pump.

“For every $42 rise in the price of a barrel of crude oil, the average household will spend an extra $500 annually on gasoline,” JP Morgan’s Glassman says. 

Businesses dependent on raw materials and transportation could find the coming months challenging. If the rising cost of commodities and oil starts to spill over into core inflation, this could compel the Fed to plan more interest rate hikes, which could cool the economy, the economist noted.