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Commodities & Energy Sector

The Baltic Dry index, which measures the average price paid for the transport of dry bulk materials across more than 20 shipping lanes, has rebounded 63% this month and 130% since the middle of the year. The latest leg of the rally is not happening in…

Today, we are sending you the BCA annual outlook for 2024. The report is an edited transcript of our recent conversation with Mr. X and his daughter, Ms. X, who are long-time BCA clients with whom we discuss the economic and financial market outlook for the next twelve months toward the end of each year.

A series of notable events took place over the Thanksgiving holiday but none of them force us to change our fundamental assessments. The conflict in the Middle East is likely to escalate rather than de-escalate, while the Taiwan Strait has at least a 50/50 chance of seeing tensions escalate next year.

The first stop of the EIS Special Series: PIGS Have Wings takes us to Portugal.

BCA Research's Commodity & Energy Strategy service concludes that lithium demand will rise over the long run. Lithium prices are continuing the selloff that began earlier this year, which was caused by strong production and mining capex increases. …

China’s push to dramatically expand its copper-refining capacity will be complemented by further vertical integration of mining assets. However, surplus refining capacity will push treatment and refining charges lower in the short run. The threat of EU tariffs on Chinese EV imports looms large, and could be costly to China’s expansion of its already-dominant supply-chain ecosystem for EVs and metals refining. We remain long the XME and COMT ETFs to retain exposure to metals miners and refiners.

President Biden is facing foreign challenges on three fronts and these challenges are coalescing around the critical states of the Midwest. Take risks off the table and stay defensive in 2024.

As we anticipated in an Insight we published in May, palladium continues to underperform platinum. Last week, platinum's discount to palladium shrunk to its smallest since August 2018. While the prices of both metals have fallen so far this year, palladium's…
Oil prices have relapsed despite the supply cuts and the geopolitical volatility stemming from the Middle East. Odds are that global oil demand is downshifting. The chart above illustrates that there is a tight relationship between crude oil prices and the…
The spectacular rally in the cocoa price has taken it to its highest level in 44 years. The proximate cause is lower crop yields in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, the world’s two largest cocoa producers. Frequent extreme weather events caused by El Nino and a…