In 2008, prices of oil, natural gas, gold, silver, copper, corn, wheat, and most other commodities reached multi-year, and in some cases multi-decade, highs. They’ve fallen sharply since then, but commodities aren’t going out of business. Another peak is coming, and it will be far higher, especially for oil. The price run up to 2008 came as a debt induced economic acceleration in the developed countries sucked in imports from the emerging economies of Asia. Virtually all the world was gobbling up commodities, but supplies were still choked by the preceding decades of underinvestment in mine development, processing plants, pipelines, railroads, and other elements of the industrial infrastructure needed for producing and transporting raw materials.
Faster consumption and static production capacity had an unsurprising effect prices rose. Then they rose some more and kept on rising. And in the later stages of the commodity price boom, investors, especially hedge funds, joined the bidding as a way to bet on a growing world economy. More bidders, more price push. But not forever. When the credit bubble that had been overstimulating just about every industry became unsustainable and financial markets everywhere collapsed, commodity prices collapsed along with them in anticipation.....read the entire article
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