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Friday, February 24, 2023 11:25:57 AM
Commodities’ Wild Ride: Spikes, Plunges, Re-spikes: Lithium, Lumber, Coal, Wheat, Copper, Steel, Iron Ore, Soybeans, Coffee, Corn
By: Wolf Richter | February 23, 2023
• Oh no, coffee! Commodities are not moving in lockstep.
We’re going to look at a few spectacular wild rides in commodities – but not including crude oil, gasoline, and natural gas which I discuss here separately quite a bit and in greater detail.
Lithium. Remember, just last year, the world was going to have a shortage of lithium carbonate, one of the key raw materials for EV batteries. With all the hype about supply shortages, and booming demand from manufacturers of EV batteries, the price of lithium carbonate spiked. The China lithium carbonate index, a benchmark price, exploded by a factor of 15 in two years, from CNY 40,000 per tonne in November 2020 to CNY 600,000 per tonne by November 2022. And then that was it.
New supply was being put on the map, including in Australia – makes sense at these crazy prices – and demand was strong but not that strong, and all that became clear late last year, and when the hype fizzled as it always does, the price began to plunge. At the moment at CNY 405,500, the price has plunged by 32% in two months, and is now below where it had been a year ago (all charts here via Trading Economics):
Lumber. The price of Chicago lumber futures went through epic gyrations during the pandemic, spiking by 350%, then plunging, then spiking all over again, the plunging all over again, and now it’s back where it used to be, currently at $374 per thousand board feet:
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DiscoverGold
By: Wolf Richter | February 23, 2023
• Oh no, coffee! Commodities are not moving in lockstep.
We’re going to look at a few spectacular wild rides in commodities – but not including crude oil, gasoline, and natural gas which I discuss here separately quite a bit and in greater detail.
Lithium. Remember, just last year, the world was going to have a shortage of lithium carbonate, one of the key raw materials for EV batteries. With all the hype about supply shortages, and booming demand from manufacturers of EV batteries, the price of lithium carbonate spiked. The China lithium carbonate index, a benchmark price, exploded by a factor of 15 in two years, from CNY 40,000 per tonne in November 2020 to CNY 600,000 per tonne by November 2022. And then that was it.
New supply was being put on the map, including in Australia – makes sense at these crazy prices – and demand was strong but not that strong, and all that became clear late last year, and when the hype fizzled as it always does, the price began to plunge. At the moment at CNY 405,500, the price has plunged by 32% in two months, and is now below where it had been a year ago (all charts here via Trading Economics):
Lumber. The price of Chicago lumber futures went through epic gyrations during the pandemic, spiking by 350%, then plunging, then spiking all over again, the plunging all over again, and now it’s back where it used to be, currently at $374 per thousand board feet:
* * *
Read Full Story »»»
DiscoverGold
Information posted to this board is not meant to suggest any specific action, but to point out the technical signs that can help our readers make their own specific decisions. Caveat emptor!
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