Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Perspective on commodity volatility



The guys at Talaconsult.com have done a great job at providing a nice simple dashboard showing current commodity volatility. This is a great use of design and highlights the differences in the current market. 

It shows that all of the commodity price action is still in natural gas. Regardless of the supply that has been added to the market, prices will move wildly with weather changes. Sugar and pork have been two active markets this month. The live hog market is subject to wild volatility given the inability to store inventory. There is a strong hog cycle, but short-term shocks to supply or demand cannot be smoothed easily without the ability to move product through time by having storage. Sugar has been on a wild ride due to weather in Brazil. 

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