Commodities Update Rice prices to tumble by 20% by end-2020 Export restrictions and stockpiling associated with the coronavirus may continue to support the price of Thai rice for the next few months. However, we expect that prices will fall back by the end of... 8th April 2020 · 3 mins read
Japan Economic Outlook Output to fall more than during global financial crisis Lockdowns will soon be imposed across much of Japan, triggering a decline of more than 10% in economic activity this quarter. The government’s latest fiscal package is intended to help firms stay... 8th April 2020 · 19 mins read
Energy Update Covid-19 casts a shadow on Henry Hub Natural gas prices have reached historic lows in recent weeks, with US natural gas (Henry Hub) last week plumbing depths not seen since 1995. The near-term outlook for natural gas is bleak, but prices... 7th April 2020 · 2 mins read
Precious Metals Update Car sector woes spell bad news for PGMs As growing numbers of car companies idle production in response to COVID-19, we suspect that platinum group metals (PGM) demand will slow to a crawl. What’s more, job losses and income cuts due to... 6th April 2020 · 3 mins read
Commodities Weekly All eyes on OPEC+ (again) The price of Brent crude surged by 30% this week after President Trump suggested that Saudi Arabia and Russia were close to agreeing an eye-watering 15m bpd output cut to combat COVID-19’s hit to... 3rd April 2020 · 7 mins read
Capital Daily Oil deal wouldn’t alter the short-term outlook for petro-currencies We doubt that the rally in oil prices of the past couple of days will last, even if Russia and Saudi Arabia agree a deal to cut output. And while we do think that oil prices will rebound in the second... 3rd April 2020 · 7 mins read
Energy Update Saudi-led output cuts won’t be a gamechanger Oil prices have surged by about 30% in recent days after President Trump said that a deal between Russia and Saudi Arabia to jointly cut oil production would come in a “few days”. We are sceptical... 3rd April 2020 · 2 mins read
Metals Chart Pack Metals still staring into the abyss Industrial metals prices plummeted in March. And with the virus-related disruption outside of China yet to peak, we suspect that prices will fall further over the coming months. Even if containment... 2nd April 2020 · 7 mins read
Commodities Chart Pack No relief for prices yet Oil prices plummeted in March under the weight of a collapse in demand and pledges from OPEC+ members to significantly raise output. Most other commodity prices also fell last month as the COVID-19... 1st April 2020 · 7 mins read
Commodities Update A bit of caution on China’s March PMIs Although China’s official and unofficial PMIs improved in March, the underlying picture is that the economy remains weak and is unlikely to offer much support to commodity prices. 1st April 2020 · 2 mins read
Middle East & North Africa Economics Update How long will the Gulf endure oil at $20pb? Brent crude is closing in on $20pb and, if there are no signs of a recovery in the coming months, the chances that Saudi Arabia pushes for fresh oil output cuts will grow. Meanwhile, we are... 31st March 2020 · 3 mins read
Capital Daily Oil sector likely to lag any strong recovery in risky assets While most risky assets have bounced back over the past week, oil prices have fallen further and we doubt that they will recover anytime soon as oil producers compete to flood the market. 30th March 2020 · 6 mins read
Energy Update No let-up for oil anytime soon The latest leg-down in oil prices is not so surprising given that demand is collapsing at a time of rising supply. We think oil prices will only pick up if, as we expect, economic activity revives... 30th March 2020 · 2 mins read
Metals Watch Copper’s “price premium” to grow In this Metals Watch, we introduce our measure of the “fundamental” copper price. A key takeaway is that, while we expect the traded price of copper to recover some lost ground by year-end, there is... 30th March 2020 · 7 mins read
Energy Update Global oil demand to fall to its lowest level since 2014 The coronavirus is disrupting global economic activity by much more than we had previously thought. As a result, we now expect global oil demand to fall by 6.5% in 2020 to just under 94m bpd. 27th March 2020 · 3 mins read
Commodities Update For now, the worst-case scenario will be avoided We think there will be some permanent loss of commodity consumption in 2020 owing to virus-related disruption to activity, but we do see prices picking up later this year as economic growth starts to... 26th March 2020 · 3 mins read
