It was a very interesting year for commodities. High inflation caused that investors were even more interested in real assets than in previous years. The war in Ukraine started by Russia caused a significant increase in volatility in many commodity markets, especially in the energy market. On the other hand, the situation calmed down considerably at the end of the year. At the same time, the commodity market had to deal with a strong dollar, high interest rates and uncertainty over economic activity in China.
Investors should focus on further actions from central banks next year as the fight with inflation is not over yet. However, we should expect interest rates should stop rising at some point. We believe that the U.S. dollar most likely should weaken further, which should be positive for commodities. There is a high probability that China will open up its economy after zero-covid policy that limited the use of some industrial and energy commodities. On the other hand, investors are concerned about a slowdown of the global economy or even a recession.
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Create account Try a demo Download mobile app Download mobile appRanking of commodities nominal price changes
Looking at the ranking of commodities nominal price changes, we can see that natgas, orange juice or nickel did very well. However, a very little change was scored by oil.
Ranking of commodities nominal price changes. Source: Bloomberg
However, it should be remembered that investors should look not only at the change in price, but also at the rolling of contracts. Many commodities were in the state of "backwardation”. It means that futures contracts were trading lower than the spot price. When the contract was rolled over, the price was lower, but swap points were added to the position. This is why a possible return from an investment with rollover taken into account looks quite different. In that situation, we can see that oil did quite well.
Returns with rollovers. We can see that energy and agricultural commodities did well this year. On the other hand, industrial metals and softs were heavily sold off. Source: Bloomberg
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