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David Fuller and Eoin Treacy's Comment of the Day
Category - Precious Metals / Commodities

Cotton Hits Monthly High as Market Sees Demand Pickup From China

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest. Here is a section: 

The US Department of Agriculture will release new numbers for the US and world cotton production on Wednesday. Analysts in a Bloomberg survey expect little change versus the report from the prior month, which already pointed to growing world cotton consumption. 

On the supply side, the cotton futures market is concerned about the condition of the US crop and the yield potential for the new marketing year, said Walter Kunisch, senior commodity market strategist at Hilltop Securities Inc. Heat in US top producer Texas creates challenges for the crop development, he said. 

In other markets, raw sugar gained following the release of data on the declining quality for sugar-cane crops in top exporter Brazil. Arabica coffee fell, narrowing its premium over robusta as the pace of Brazil’s harvest increases and El Niño threatens Vietnam’s production of the cheaper beans.    



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Russia confirms BRICS will create a gold-backed currency

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

"Talk of BRICS gold backed currency seems like an echo chamber. They do not have the gold to back a currency meaningfully," said Marc Chandler, managing director of Bannockburn Global Forex. "Have we not learned anything from the EMU experience of monetary union without fiscal union. Color me profoundly skeptical."

Many analysts have been speculating about a new global currency to challenge the U.S. dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. In late March, Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O'Neill wrote in a paper published in the Global Policy Journal that the U.S. dollar's dominance is destabilizing global monetary policies. He added that a BRICS currency, challenging the U.S. dollar's dominance, would bring stability to the global economy.

"Whenever the Federal Reserve Board has embarked on periods of monetary tightening, or the opposite, loosening, the consequences on the value of the dollar and the knock-on effects have been dramatic," he said.



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Fed Minutes Reveal Divisions Over Decision to Pause in June

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:  

Federal Reserve officials struck a tenuous agreement to pause interest-rate increases at their June meeting, all but committing to hike again later this month in a bid to keep fighting stubborn inflation.

The minutes from the Fed’s June 13-14 meeting show that while almost all officials deemed it “appropriate or acceptable” to keep rates unchanged in a 5% to 5.25% target range, some would have supported a quarter-point increase instead. 

“It was a little surprising given that the decision was sold as unanimous from Fed officials,” said Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. “It’s pretty clear that there was a divergence of opinions, with some officials pretty clearly giving some reluctance for a one-month pause.”



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Bunge Is Said to Near Deal to Buy Glencore's Viterra

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Combining the two will create a trader big enough to take on the industry’s elite: Minneapolis-based Cargill Inc. and Chicago’s Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. The deal is the culmination of Bunge Chief Executive Officer Greg Heckman’s transformation of the once troubled St. Louis-based crop trader into a cash-rich oilseeds champion.



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Jobless Claims Put FOMC Unemployment Forecast in Sight

This note from Bloomberg Economics may be of interest. 

OUR TAKE: The surge in jobless claims — to the highest level since October 2021 — is in line with our analysis of WARN notices, which suggested layoffs were set to spike. It’s increasingly feasible for the unemployment rate to reach the median FOMC participant’s 4.5% projection by year-end.

Initial jobless claims for the week ended June 3 increased 28k to 261k. The reading was above the consensus (235k) and Bloomberg Economics’ projection (240k).

The surge came from Ohio (6.3k), California (5.2k), Minnesota (2.7k) and Pennsylvania (2.0k).

Given recent fraudulent applications in Massachusetts, it’s possible that other states are experiencing similar issues. However, the four-week moving average also increased by 7.5k to 237k, well above the 218k pre-pandemic average from 2019. That suggests labor-market conditions are continuing to cool.

Continuing claims declined 37k to 1,757k for the week ended May 27, remaining above the pre-pandemic average of 1,699k. The insured unemployment rate — the number of people currently receiving unemployment insurance as a percentage of the labor force — remained at 1.2%.
We expect continuing claims to move higher given the surge in initial claims and tracking of WARN notices.



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Gold Wavers as Traders Assess Fed Rate Path After Australia Hike

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Gold swung between gains and losses as traders mulled the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate path after a surprise hike by Australia’s central bank.

The Reserve Bank of Australia unexpectedly raised its key rate and kept the door open to further hikes. Treasury yields rose alongside a strengthening dollar, keeping bullion’s upside in check. Traders have been increasingly betting the US central bank will hold rates steady at its June meeting, while keeping the option for hikes later open.

“After many traders were surprised by the hawkish rate rise by the RBA, fears are growing that the Fed might need to do a lot more tightening,” said Ed Moya, senior market analyst at Oanda.



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Major dam breached in southern Ukraine, unleashing floodwaters

This article from Reuters may be of interest. Here is a section:

The dam, 30 metres (yards) tall and 3.2 km (2 miles) long and which holds water equal to the Great Salt Lake in the U.S. state of Utah, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.

It also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control and which gets cooling water from the reservoir.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said there was no immediate nuclear safety risk at the plant due to the dam failure but that it was monitoring the situation closely. The head of the plant also said there was no current threat to the station.



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China gas demand becomes more feasible at low LNG prices but challenges persist

Thanks to a subscriber for this article from S&P Global focusing on Chinese LNG demand. Here is a section: 

China's Shenzhen Energy closed a buy tender on May 30 seeking an August-delivery cargo,and the tender was awarded in the low $9s/MMBtu,according to several sources.

Prior to this, China's Guanghui Energy was heard to have partially awarded a buy tender for certain cargoes delivering from July 2023 to January 2024,S&PGlobal Commodity Insights reported earlier.

The prices of pipeline gas in China, which reflect crude prices 9-12 months ago, have been rising this year, with the average net import price above $8.5/MMBtu in April, showed calculations based on customs data

This means that the price advantage of pipeline gas over spot LNG is fading, which is expected to stimulate buying interest from importers who do not have sufficient long-term contracts in hand, market sources said.

"Rising prices of domestic pipeline gas in China could provide some incentive for downstream industries to switch to LNG," a Chinese importer said, adding that the current LNG prices were quite competitive and second-tier buyers could be more likely to come out to buy spot cargoes.



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Bitcoin Coders Feud Over Whether to Crush $1 Billion Meme Frenzy

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

Others defend the software innovation, called Ordinals, that allows Bitcoin’s blockchain to host large numbers of memecoins and nonfungible tokens — digital collectibles — for the first time, arguing it can have wider applications.

Developer Casey Rodarmor created Ordinals to enable users to inscribe digital content like videos, images and text on satoshis, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. There are 100 million satoshis in one Bitcoin. 

Rodarmor’s innovation took off this year and was seized on by pseudonymous blockchain analyst Domo to develop the Bitcoin Request for Comment — or BRC-20 — standard, which led to the explosion of memecoins.

There are now about 25,000 meme tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain with a market value of roughly $475 million, according to website brc-20.io. The figure had soared past $1 billion in early May.

Jameson Lopp, co-founder of crypto storage solutions provider Casa, said the Bitcoin network is meant to be an “auction market for the block space” — the place where data is stored — and Ordinals merely stoked demand for it.



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China Mulls New Property Support Package to Boost Economy

This article from Bloomberg may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section: 

A mountain of developer debt — equal to about 12% of China’s GDP — is at risk of default and poses a threat to financial stability, according to Bloomberg Economics. That’s despite a slew of existing support measures for the industry, which include: 

Lower mortgage rates for first-home buyers if newly constructed house prices drop for three consecutive months
A nationwide cap on real estate commissions to boost demand
Allowing private equity funds to raise money for residential property developments
Pledging 200 billion yuan ($28 billion) in special loans to ensure stalled housing projects are delivered
A 16-point plan unveiled in November that ranged from addressing the liquidity crisis to loosening down-payment requirements for homebuyers

Speculation about further policy support helped propel a gauge of Chinese property developers to a more than 6% gain on Friday before the Bloomberg report, the most since December. In the coastal city of Qingdao, the government this week lowered the down payment ratio for first- and second-time home buyers in areas not subject to purchase restrictions, local media reported earlier on Friday.



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