Ashwin Shyam
Strategist, Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities
-
Are You Ready For A “Super El Niño?”
The risk of a “super El Niño” represents a meaningful threat to agricultural markets. Wheat, cocoa, and palm oil appear particularly vulnerable to El Niño-related supply disruptions. A rise in food prices could also generate political — and potentially geopolitical — reverberations across frontier and emerging markets, where food prices are far more relevant than in developed economies.
-
On Hormuz’s LNG Disruption
The Iran war has damaged LNG production capacity and halted tanker flows through the Strait of Hormuz. We assess the conflict's impact on LNG markets over cyclical and structural horizons.
-
Maduro’s Last Barrel
US intervention will likely force out Maduro from Venezuela and reopen the economy. This could increase Venezuelan crude production in the long run, a modestly bearish outcome for oil markets over cyclical and structural horizons.
-
The Very Energy Hungry Artificial Intelligence
Renewables’ role in power-hungry data centers is overstated. Natural gas will fill clean electricity’s data center supply shortfall, particularly in the US and Europe.
-
Lithium: Calm Before The Next Upsurge
Lithium prices have collapsed by nearly 90% from the late-2022 peak. How will lithium markets evolve from here?In this report, we explore the cyclical and structural outlook for supply, demand, and prices.We conclude that prices are likely to remain contained over the coming 12 to 18 months before facing upside pressure later this decade.
-
Copper: Interplay Of Structural Tailwinds And Cyclical Headwinds
We expect a copper supply-demand deficit to emerge in 2026 and widen into the end of the decade. This will provide a tailwind for copper prices over a long-term horizon. That said, we believe a better opportunity to position for a structural uptrend in copper prices will arise over the coming six-to-nine months.
-
Copper And The Energy Transition: A Premature Bet
The green energy transition will drive a surge in copper demand over a long-term horizon. However, a better entry point to get long will emerge after the next economic downturn begins.
Roukaya Ibrahim, Qingyun Xu, Ashwin Shyam
-
Resilient Oil Demand, Tighter Supply
Strong growth in the US and large EMs ex-China will translate into higher oil demand in 2024 – 2025. With mostly unchanged oil supply, tighter markets will ensue. We’ve raised our 2024 average Brent forecast to $98/bbl, and expect $105/bbl in 2H24. In 2025, we expect Brent to average $110/bbl. Prices could easily move higher, if the US moves against one or all of the states enjoying US sanctions forbearance – Russia, Iran, Venezuela. If Brent trades through $110/bbl, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will release spare capacity.
-
Risk Assessment Of Our Commodity Views
Our bullish gold, copper and oil calls have played out as expected, with gains of 14%, 11% and 16% since the beginning of the year. In this risk assessment of our views, we conclude the bull trends driving these markets higher remain intact. However, the risks of central-bank policy errors, resource nationalism and protectionism are rising. We are raising our gold and copper price targets to $2,500/oz (from $2,300/oz) and $5.00/lb (from $4.50/lb).
-
Copper Poised For Breakout
Copper markets are fast approaching a price breakout, as Chinese smelters scramble to find ore to meet increasing refined-copper demand in the wake of a global manufacturing rebound. We are holding fast to our expectation of $4.50/lb (COMEX) this year. We remain long the XME ETF to retain exposure to copper miners and refiners, and the COMT ETF to retain exposure to commodity flat price and the copper backwardation we expect.